Release
by VampireRacecourse
Summary: Lance is injured in battle and left under the care of Pietro Maximoff. Hormones run astray and young Avalanche learns that nothing comes without an emotional price. LP slash.
1. Released

Lance pined for his guitar.  
  
Stabbing his toe into the carpet, he sullenly thought how unfair life was.  
  
It had to be him- wasn't life a bitch? As if fate wasn't cruel enough to him already, some bastard mutant out there had rendered him temporarily paralysed in the arms. And what, exactly could you do without the use of your arms? Not a lot.  
  
He didn't really remember how it happened. The Brotherhood had been causing trouble in town at the time and ran into an older, bigger mutant gang. Looking back now, there was no way in hell they could have taken that group on. He supposed one of them must have tried to stop his powers by doing whatever they had done to his arms. It was so incredibly humiliating. He had never lost his powers before, never felt vulnerable. It wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't fainted as well, leading him to be the butt of many a Brotherhood joke. The next thing he knew, he was being looked over by that blue, furry X-Freak, Beast. And the Beast, that bastard was telling him that the paralysis would last for a month.  
  
A fucking month!  
  
Mystique had visited the evening of the accident, delighted that he had done something so deliciously idiotic. The insults could have lasted all night, had she not had tickets for the opera. She glared, shouted, jerked his floppy arm about in the hope that some signs of life would appear. When that didn't work, she called half-heartedly decided that Lance would need an 'assistant'.  
  
Fred was out of the question. He was kind enough to do the job, but far too stupid. He'd either tire of the job too quickly or kill Lance somewhere in the process- unintentionally of course.  
  
Todd would have happily done the job, but Mystique was reluctant to leave a semi-invalid in his care. If Todd's own personal hygiene was anything to go by, he couldn't even look after himself. Besides, she herself wouldn't particularly like to have to spend a month having the Toad cater for her every need. No, the smell would be unbearable.  
  
So that really only left Pietro. He wasn't the most ideal choice- wasn't "I only look after number one" one of his catchphrases? But then again, maybe having to care for somebody else might deflate his swollen head a little. She knew he was the most responsible after Lance, as well.  
  
The look on their faces when she had told them were priceless. Lance stared at her indignantly, then Pietro and moodily, his gaze fell to the carpet. Pietro just blinked and shook his head in disbelief before the tiniest of smiles curled his lip.  
  
The first few days of being in Maximoff's care had been torture for Lance. Pietro had been, in his eyes, completely over-attentive. Whenever he spoke, he smirked and frequently taunted him. "Can you manage, Lance? Need some help there?"  
  
The one bonus was that he got to miss a month of school. Well, what use would he have been there? Pietro also got the time off, and was utterly thrilled.  
  
Of course, that wasn't the only reason he was happy at the prospect of looking after Lance, however much he'd have liked it to be. Against his own will, he had found himself falling for the Earthquake-boy. It didn't bother him so much that he had feelings for a male, but.. Lance? Mr Couldn't-Be- Straighter-If-He-Tried Alvers? And now, seeing him all day, every day was only making it worse. Without the use of his arms, Lance was helpless. God.. That turned him on. The things he could do, if only he wasn't such a coward and Lance wasn't so. heterosexual!  
  
As the time went on, Lance began to mildly enjoy Pietro's company. Maximoff had a short attention span, which meant that neither of them were ever bored. Lance could tell that he was slowing Pietro down and almost regretted it, but then why shouldn't the boy suffer a little? It wasn't like he was having to eat through a straw or have to be helped to dress. Of course, Pietro had sworn never to look and had stayed true to his word. It was so hard not to touch Lance, but he always refrained. Had to refrain, even if it meant thinking of the Blob in a bikini.  
  
It must have been boredom that started it off. That and those wonderful things- hormones. Everything began to remind him of sex. It didn't help that sex was everywhere he looked, thanks to the modern media. He could barely turn on the TV without seeing a ripe pair of breasts, nipples decadently prominent and just ready to bite. And that Kitty Pryde. When was she going to stop calling round in her X-Freak uniform, so gloriously tight around areas that he could only dream about?  
  
Sex. Sex sex sex. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it!  
  
It made him so irritable. Damn, Maximoff was an annoying little shit. Why'd he have to talk so fast? Stupid hair. Stupid, stupid everything and stupid paralysis!  
  
That particular day found him silently seething in front of the TV, Pietro in a chair across from him fiddling with his guitar. His baby. The boy knew well enough not to play it and seemed content enough just to hold it. Although he would have never admitted it, Lance's guitar made him feel really cool. Sometimes, when Lance went to bed he'd jump around the room with it, miming riffs and solos like there was no tomorrow.  
  
He looked across at Alvers, who was looking extremely frustrated. He was chewing on his lip furiously and almost rocking back and forth. Pietro tentatively put the guitar down- which he later learnt was named Kitty, what else?- and put on a cheerful smile.  
  
"Well well, Lance, what's got you all hot and bothered?"  
  
Sex. Sex. Sex. Lance glared across at Pietro, then became paranoid. Hot? Bothered? What did he know, could he see?  
  
"Nothing."  
  
Sex. Breasts, nipples, Kitty Pryde. Oh God, Kitty Pryde!! "Sure." The silver-haired boy's lips twisted into an evil little grin. Lance tried desperately to think of something unsexy- Toad naked- yes, naked Toad- oh, naked Kitty- naked naked naked!  
  
He needed it so much. Really, desperately. And he couldn't- he physically couldn't! But he needed it- needed to-  
  
"Anything I can do for you?"  
  
Lance was surprised to find that there was no sneer in Pietro's voice. For once, he seemed genuine, concerned even. There was no smirk, no gleam in the icy eyes. This was the real Maximoff. And before he could stop himself- he was doing it- asking for the one thing he needed most but would deeply regret. What would Pietro even think?  
  
"You want me to-?" Maximoff's eyes became wide, and Lance realised that a lot of his ego-charged persona was just a façade. Pietro looked so innocent and shocked, corrupted by Lance's filthy little mind.  
  
"Yes, I mean, no! I mean-"  
  
"Relax." Lance looked up to see that Pietro was smiling. "Testosterone, eh? What a bastard."  
  
"Yes-" Lance found that he was beginning to babble. He needed this. Really, really desperately. "Please do it- no one has to know and I know it's asking a lot- I- could pay you, maybe."  
  
Pietro snickered.  
  
"Lance, you can't pay me to bring you off! Do you know how that makes you sound?"  
  
"Desperate?" asked Lance, staring at Pietro like a bird after prey. "Come on, Piet. I'm 17. It's killing me!"  
  
"Mm." Pietro looked into Lance's eyes intently, looking unsuitably grave.  
  
"OK," he muttered after what seemed like an age for Lance. "I'll do it."  
  
Lance sank into the chair with relief.  
  
"Thanks, Piet."  
  
In a flash, Pietro zipped around the room pulling all the curtains shut. Then he appeared in front of Lance, an almost nervous look on his face. Lance stood, too intoxicated with lust to sense the awkwardness.  
  
"Here goes nothing," Pietro murmured to himself. The moment he had been dreaming about for months was finally happening, although not quite in the circumstances he had hoped. With a steady hand, he reached for the zip of Lance's jeans. "Pretend I'm Pretty Kitty," he told Lance and he took hold of the zip and half undid it, immediately greeted by the force of Lance's desire. He watched as Lance strained, grinding against the zip for some release. Lightly, he slapped the Rock-Tumbler's backside and pulled the zip down fully.  
  
Noting that without the use of his arms, Lance's balance was off, Pietro was faced with the dilemma of taking his jeans off. In the end, he put one forceful hand on Lance's shoulder and used the other to slide the jeans down. Before long, both lost their balance and ended up in a sweaty heap on the ground. Pietro carefully slid off Lance's jeans completely and helped him to stand again. The boy was starting to breathe more quickly now and using his speed skills, Pietro removed his underwear in a flash to release him more quickly.  
  
And how Lance needed release. His dick was huge and throbbing, purple tinged.  
  
"Fuck," Pietro muttered softly. "How long has it been?"  
  
"Too long," Lance whispered hoarsely. If he'd had the use of his arms, he couldn't help suspecting that he'd like to pull Maximoff to him and do filthy things to him- only, that wasn't right. He liked girls, didn't he? Kitty. Oh God.  
  
"Don't be so fucking kinky!" he growled at Pietro, almost crying with need. "Do it!"  
  
On his command, Pietro outstetched his hand.  
  
"How do you like it?" he asked.  
  
"Slow at first-" Lance grunted. "Then harder."  
  
"Slow?" Pietro raised a raven's wing eyebrow, looking handomely devilish. "You've come to the wrong guy, Alvers."  
  
"Do it," Lance repeated, pleading now. In return, he was grabbed by Maximoff, a forceful fist closing around him. For a few seconds- nothing. Torture. Then Pietro trailed a long finger over the tip, evoking a moan from Lance and closed his fist again, stroking slow and hard. He used his other hand to steady Lance, guiding them both towards a wall where he pinned him. Lance threw his head back as the pleasure became more intense, Pietro's other hand rolling his balls.  
  
Pietro moaned, wanting to do so much more. How far would Lance let him go for release? Why, of all people did he have to have feelings for Alvers, the boy whose cock he was currently pumping into oblivion?  
  
"Fuck you," Lance groaned as Pietro began to tease him by stopping, then starting again, harder, faster, slower, stopping, pumping, stroking.. It was so intense.. And the images in his mind. Kitty Pryde.. If this were her hand.. He could see her now, so clear.  
  
Jesus, Maximoff was skilled. But cruel- so cruel- why stop, why keep stopping? It was killing him. And he was loving it. Pietro began to stroke the tip again in small, beautiful circles, and Lance could feel himself teetering on the edge, almost there. One more- Kitty, naked and touching him- one, hard tug and that was it. He was released.  
  
"Fuck!" he screamed, his cock twitching under Pietro's grip. He shuddered, trembled, felt like he was falling into the wall. And then he came, almost violently into Maximoff's hand, eyes closed and mouth wide open.  
  
"Oh fuck.." he repeated softly, head spinning. Pietro's hand was still on his shoulder, making sure he didn't overbalance. He watched as Pietro opened his hand, examining Lance's thick, white semen with half-lidded eyes. The boy then closed his hand and in a convulsive movement, pressed his mouth to Lance's violently, sucking on his tongue posessively.  
  
"Kitty.." Lance moaned into his mouth. Pietro pulled away immediately, a look Lance had never seen before on his face. Hurt. Disappointment.  
  
"No," he whispered softly. "I'm not. And I never will be."  
  
It killed Lance how slowly Maximoff walked out of the room when he was capable of such speed. He walked with his head down and his shoulders tightly hunched, visibly hurt.  
  
He left Lance slumped against the wall.  
  
Exposed.  
  
Confused.  
  
Released. 


	2. Beat

Filthy.  
  
He was absolutely filthy, positively swarming with dirt. He was the intoxicated old man in midnight's back alleys, beckoning sweet young things over for a pretty little sum. He was a user, a liar and a bastard.  
  
How could he look Pietro in the eye anymore? Could Pietro even bring himself to look at him now?  
  
Stupid bastard, Lance growled at himself. Stupid, horny bastard!  
  
If he had any control over his arms whatsoever, he would have taken the chance to beat his own head repeatedly at his stupidity. Instead, he bashed his forehead against the wall to a steady rhythm.  
  
Why- clunk!- Are- clunk!- You- clunk!- So- clunk!- Stupid?  
  
Talk to Pietro, the ever hopeful voice in the back of his mind suggested.  
  
Fuck- clunk!- You- clunk!- Alvers!  
  
Apologise.  
  
Clunk.  
  
With his back pressed tight into the wall, Lance used his hips to shimmy up it until he was standing. He couldn't remember walking without being aided by Pietro and found that trivial tasks, such as supporting his head, were difficult enough let alone taking any steps. With a deep breath and some unnecessary rousing anthem in his head, he moved one foot in front of the other and consequently fell flat on his face.  
  
Lance moaned as he tasted a mouthful of carpet. It was so dirty that where it had once been green it was now a rank grey. He opened one eye cautiously and immediately opened the other in shock.  
  
A piercing blue eye, though noticeably red-rimmed, was boring into his.  
  
"Pietro!" he cried in a strangled manner, spitting out a mouthful of fluff.  
  
"Put some damn clothes on," muttered Pietro in reply, bitterness puncturing his every word.  
  
"I was trying to find you," Lance began as the boy quickly slipped his underwear on for him, avoiding any eye contact.  
  
"Save it, Lance."  
  
"No, really, I was! I wanted to say-" Pietro, who was zipping up Lance's jeans, laughed softly. Did he have to make it worse by pretending to be sorry?  
  
"Sorry? Don't bother." A delicate white hand extended in front of Lance's face, the very hand that had released him. Lance couldn't help noticing that the palm of his hand was scrubbed red raw. Pietro must have felt as dirty as he did.  
  
Well, what next? Lance asked his inner optimist. Sadly, the optimist in question seemed to have abandoned ship and been replaced by the familiar whine of self-pity.  
  
Pietro still wouldn't look at him. The hand inches from Lance's face acted as a barrier between them. This made the situation more awkward than it already was and Lance struggled to break the atmosphere.  
  
"But I am," he said, more sincere than Pietro had ever seen him in his entire life. "I'm sorry for what I did. It was wrong. If I heard that some guy had made his friend do that, I'd think it was pretty sick."  
  
Pietro's scowl only deepened at the last comment. So, Lance thought it was sick. That wasn't supposed to happen. Lance was supposed to forget Kitty and fall for him instead and they'd kiss again and then he'd admit his love.. And then they'd look up into the night sky to see a squadron of pigs flying by. Why was he so hurt by this? Lance was straight. Lance wanted Kitty. Things were not going to change just because he wanted them to. For once in his life, he was not going to get his way no matter how much he pouted or cried.  
  
"- should never have asked you to do it," Lance finished, leaning his head back on the wall Pietro had propped him against.  
  
Pietro couldn't help himself.  
  
"You should've asked Kitty," he spat, looking as if the name left a disgusting taste in his mouth. "She'd've been more than willing to oblige. Might've thrown in some head, too."  
  
His words stung Lance, who immediately became defensive.  
  
"Hey, nobody made you do it! I didn't force you into it and if you'd said no; which you didn't," he hastened to add, growing angry with the speed demon, "I'd have understood."  
  
For once, Lance was relieved that he didn't have the use of his powers. With the intensity of the emotions that today had brought about, he suspected that the house would not have been standing otherwise.  
  
"Perhaps it's not about that," he heard Pietro mumble in a muffled voice and looking up, he could see that the boy had removed his hand and now buried his head in his arms.  
  
Pietro wanted to smack himself for being such an idiot. There he was, trying to tell Lance about his 'feelings' like they had stepped into a sickening teen soap opera. When was he going to get it into his head that Lance Didn't Care?  
  
Lance's eyes strayed to his beautiful guitar, Kitty. How long would it be before he could play again? And as for its namesake, when would he see her again? What would he do with her when he got the use of his arms back? The things he could do.. He could touch her, stroke her, tease her the way Pietro had-  
  
Why the hell wouldn't his hormones leave him alone? He gave his head another little bash against the wall and forced himself to focus on Pietro.  
  
He had seen Maximoff go through a lot of expressions before, but this had never been one of them. He had never seen the blue eyes grow dim before, or the mouth thinned and downcast in such a way. Even the normally luminous hair seemed duller. With a painful twinge of guilt somewhere in the centre of his chest, Lance realised that he was the cause of this.  
  
"What's goin' on, Piet?" he asked softly.  
  
"Fucking hormones," Pietro replied, lifting his head to rest on his hand. He still avoided proper eye contact, choosing instead to glance swiftly in Lance's direction. "They're evil."  
  
Lance had to agree. It was very difficult to keep his mind off sex and concentrate on what his friend was saying at all.  
  
"Of all people to suddenly develop a crush on, it had to be you. I mean, you're hardly my type. Dark hair, strong build. Male," Pietro added as an afterthought. "You're right. I didn't say no. And I didn't say no because I wanted to do it- really wanted to, so I could pretend that you wanted me even though all the time I knew you were pretending I was her. Then I kissed you, to show you how I felt and you said her name. Jesus, Lance, do you know what that felt like?"  
  
Lance shook his head, completely in shock. Pietro had a crush on him? How could he have failed to notice that? It all fit into place now. Wrapped up in the fantasy and lust of it all, Pietro's kiss had barely registered with him; but now he began to wonder.  
  
Pietro sighed. He knew he was being immature. Lance couldn't help who he fell for any more than he could. It wasn't Lance's fault that he wanted Kitty, though Pietro thought her to be an exceedingly bad choice. How could someone who applied 'like' at least twice to every sentence be good company? Somehow, his mind strayed to Kitty and Lance's wedding day.  
  
'Do you, Katharine Bitch-From-Hell Pryde take Lance Stupid-Bastard Alvers to be your lawful wedded husband?'  
  
'Like, oh my god, I am so sure that I totally do!'  
  
Then he imagined an older Lance in bed with her, lighting up a cigarette.  
  
'How was it for you, my kitten?' the bizarrely mustachioed Lance asked as he stroked his insanely hairy chest.  
  
'It was, like, so totally awesome!'  
  
Grrr. He hated Pryde.  
  
"Piet?"  
  
He blinked himself back to reality, almost relieved to see Lance minus the walrus moustache.  
  
"I had no idea," Lance gave his friend an apologetic look, brown eyes growing softer. "If I'd known that.. Let's just say this wouldn't have happened. Shit, I completely used you. You must feel awful."  
  
Even through his bitter cynicism, Pietro could not help feeling a little hope rise in his chest. Compassion was good, right?  
  
Wrong.  
  
"Don't worry, Pietro. I won't ask you to do anything like that again. Soon as I get the use of my arms back, I'll be out of your way. It's better that way, right? Less awkward."  
  
"No!" Pietro cried, shattering all hopes of his cool image remaining intact. "It is not better that way! I want you here!"  
  
Great, Pietro thought to himself. He had officially achieved the highest rank of whining brat status. Whatever next? Tears?  
  
Tears.  
  
Oh God no.  
  
"Pietro, I'm sorry," Lance said firmly. "I must've led you on. I don't want you in that way, okay? You're a nice guy. Attractive, too-" Pietro opened his mouth hopefully, but Lance silenced him. "Nothing is ever going to happen between us. I'm straight- in fact, I'm going to call Kitty tomorrow and ask her out."  
  
Pietro's mouth fell open. He wished that Lance could use his powers and create a huge gaping chasm in the floor, letting the ground swallow him up. It Wasn't Fair.  
  
"I'm sorry," Lance repeated. And he meant it too.  
  
A nasty mix of jealousy and anger began to swarm through the speed demon. Why Kitty? Why not him? A destructive urge bubbled up in him, and he realised that he wanted to destroy something that Lance loved. Ideally Kitty, but that didn't look like it was going to be possible.  
  
Lance watched in horror as Pietro picked up his baby, his beloved guitar and held it high over his head. He wouldn't. Oh God. He couldn't!  
  
"No!" Lance croaked, shutting his eyes firmly as Pietro brought it down to smash it and. stopped in mid-air.  
  
"Damn it, Lance!" shouted the frustrated Pietro as he set the guitar back down unharmed. "I should hate your bastard guts!"  
  
He breathed hard, staring straight at Lance. This was definitely one of his less sane moments. He pointed a shaking finger at him, waiting to start a long rant at the boy that never came. Instead, he let his hand slide to his side and finished lamely.  
  
"But I can't," he whispered hoarsely, debating whether to run away or not.  
  
"What can I do, Piet?" Lance asked, feeling just as hopeless. He wanted, more than anything, to be able to take the boy into his arms and hold him. This confused him. When people were upset, he never had this urge. He wanted to comfort them, certainly, but this usually only meant a pat on the shoulder or at the most a quick one-armed hug. For God's sake, he didn't even want to hold Kitty, so why the hell Pietro?  
  
"I wish." Pietro trailed off, becoming less and less articulate by the second. Then, out of the blue, his tone changed completely and he sounded more like his determined self. "I want to make you feel how I feel."  
  
He stared at Lance, and Lance stared back. The eye contact was held as Pietro appeared at his side and took a coffee coloured hand in his own. Lance felt that invisible bolts of electricity were flickering between their eyes, making it impossible to look away.  
  
He gasped as Pietro laid their hands upon his lithe, white chest. Lance's palm was laid flat against Pietro's skin, being guided upwards until it was just left of centre. The eye contact never broke between them and the silence only grew. In this silence, Lance realised that he could feel a rapid pulse running through his fingers. He couldn't remember the last time he could feel anything with his fingers and yet this was so strong and definite it was like he had felt it all along.  
  
"Can you feel that?" Pietro asked, breaking the stunned silence. Lance simply nodded, eyes wide as he realised that what he was feeling was the other's boy's heartbeat.  
  
Another silence followed, their gazes unmoving. Lance didn't understand whether the paralysis was wearing off or if it had always allowed him to feel vibrations, but the intensity of the moment was leaving all questions unanswered. Feeling the beat of Pietro's heart was the equivalent of seeing deep into his soul. Suddenly, he understood things he never knew before. A bond was made between them that became the universe and he knew exactly what the blue eyes meant for the first time.  
  
Suddenly, the whole world made sense. 


	3. Want and Need

Just had to sneak in a little Author Note for once (I don't do it often, y'see, aren't you lucky?)  
  
Thank you so much to anyone who left a review. It really helps me because I was incredibly unsure about this one. It was the smut I think- I'd never written it before this. Yeah, it was only a hand-job but I still didn't really want to go much further than "Pietro touched Lance's willy! Hehehee!" Of course, that would have made bad reading.  
  
I didn't actually mean for this to become angsty, but it looks like it might be heading that way. However, because I ADORE Pietrance it will all turn out for the best. Promise!  
  
Me- I loved the fact that you liked my characterisations. I always noticed Lance grabbing her wrist too- he's a rough 'un!  
  
Speaking of Lance, I'll explain a little a bit about the way he is in this fic. My Lance is a very primitive creature. He eats, sleeps and shags (or would like to). He is sexually attracted to Kitty but that's all. Now his feelings about Piet are different. He's confused, because he's only ever wanted sex before. He doesn't understand why Pietro makes him want something different, and because these feelings are very complex he opts for the no-strings-sex-with-Kitty (like that'll happen) option instead.  
  
Just in case anyone wonders, any bashing of Pietro and Lance's characters is affectionate. Any Kitty Pryde bashing is not.  
  
That's all for now. Hope you enjoy this!  
  
*  
  
Ah, the sweet taste of carpet in the morning.  
  
Lance lay face down on the living room floor, just beginning to stir. Some strange and twisted dream had caused him to start chewing on the carpet, resulting in an unwelcome mouthful of hair and lint. He could hear voices in the kitchen and the sound of the pitiful dripping of the tap as some poor fool tried to operate it.  
  
Something had happened yesterday. He couldn't remember what it was, but he knew that it had been something big. Sleeping on the floor had left him with the most dreadful cramp in his leg and he didn't particularly feel like thinking.  
  
"Eh, Lance!" A familiar stench entered the room, instantly recognisable. Eau de Tolensky.  
  
"Got yo' arms back yet, yo?"  
  
Lance sighed. Sadly not. "No."  
  
Todd's yellow eyes flickered and a wicked grin spread across his face.  
  
"Don't even think about it, Froggy."  
  
"'Choo gonna do 'bout it, La-aance? Cuss me with yo' astonishing wit?"  
  
Lance blinked. "Huh?"  
  
Todd let out an evil laugh and seized the opportunity to sit on Lance's legs. This gave the rock tumbler no power at all. It was brilliant; he revelled in being able to tease Lance without the boy being able to do anything about it.  
  
"Bastard," Lance growled as he tried in vain to shake Todd off  
  
"'Choo doin' on the floor anyway, Lancey-boy? Huh? You been eatin' the carpet, man? Dreamin' about eatin' Kitty's-"  
  
Despite himself, Lance blushed. Sex again, always the sex.  
  
"Todd, off," ordered Pietro, who stood at the door with his precious hair unstyled.  
  
"Eh, Pietro, what's wrong with yo' hair?" Pietro's hand strayed slowly to his hair and his pale face turned red.  
  
"FUCK OFF, TODD!" he shrieked as Todd hopped away cackling.  
  
Lance could only stare at the dishevelled Pietro in shock. Now he remembered everything. What he had made Pietro do, and how Pietro reacted. What Pietro had told him and the way he'd felt his pulse. New feelings that had been repressed until now resurfaced and confused him greatly.  
  
"You ate the carpet," Pietro stated, like such things were totally normal behaviour.  
  
"Yeah," Lance blushed sheepishly. He couldn't work out why he was blushing and had suddenly become so inarticulate. Well, actually, he had a very good idea why but he was not prepared to accept it lying down.  
  
Pietro shrugged and pulled Lance into a standing position, holding on for a little longer than he should. Then, wordlessly, he led him upstairs to the bathroom and left him there. Neither of them could deny the sparks that flew between them when they touched and the unease that hung in the air as a result.  
  
The speed demon lay back on his bed, trying to empty his mind. Living at the speed of light like he did, his mind wasn't very co-operative when it came to switching off. What the hell did last night mean? Or he was being ridiculous in thinking that it meant anything at all? Alright, so he'd got to touch Alvers. Hurrah. Look how that turned out.  
  
"PIETRO!" called his lordship. Pietro rolled his eyes. Go away, he mentally willed Lance.  
  
"Pietro!"  
  
Looked like he wasn't going to develop a gift in telepathy any time soon. Shuffling along the wall for balance, Lance entered with a very silly grin on his face.  
  
"Is this important?" Pietro asked nonchalantly, expecting to receive another 'This one time, with Kitty' anecdote. After all, Lance only seemed to smile when he thought of her. Bitch.  
  
"Look, look at my hand!" cried Lance. Pietro raised an eyebrow. It looked no different, except for the fact that it happened to be dripping soap all over his bedroom floor.  
  
"My finger, look!" Lance pressed and Pietro inspected it more closely.  
  
"What about it, Alvers?"  
  
Lance's face fell. "You can't see it moving?"  
  
Pietro tried his hardest to laugh in Lance's face and tell him what a stupid bastard he was, but somewhere along the way he had developed an annoying fondness for the boy which prevented him from giving the Earth- shaker the cruelty he so richly deserved.  
  
"Er, yeah," he lied, with a false smile that reached his ears and made his jaw ache.  
  
"Alright!" Lance grinned widely. "This is so cool!" The paralysis was wearing off now, he knew it. All the things he could do when he got his strength back..  
  
"I have to tell Kitty!" he added, his eyes widening. Pietro waited for him to shuffle out of the room and down the stairs, and then did a very foolish thing.  
  
In a moment of intense brattishness, he walked over to his bedpost and kicked it hard. Damn Lance and his crush on Stupid Bitch From Hell Pryde! He kicked it yet harder, repeatedly. It was all so unfair! Lance was obviously an insensitive piece of shit. Even after Pietro's heartfelt confession the night before, he felt it was alright to flaunt his feelings for her. No, worse than that; he saw no problem at all in ditching the boy who'd nursed him through paralysis the minute he'd felt the tiniest sign of life, running back to Pretty Kitty in the hope of releasing those tensions!  
  
Ignoring the growing pain in his toe and the blood welling up under his nail he continued to take his anger out on the bedpost. He, Pietro Maximoff, had been there all the time for that boy. He'd sacrificed the food he'd have liked himself just so His Majesty could get a decent meal. Sometimes, he'd even spoon-fed him, despite the fact that it was immensely embarrassing for the both of them. He'd dressed him, helped him find his balance, picked him up when he fell down and just last night, he'd fucking brought him off! And for what? Nothing.  
  
The most annoying thing about it that he knew there was chemistry. He knew he'd got through to old Rock head with the heartbeat. Why else would they have been so content to stare into each other's eyes, silenced by the beauty of the moment? Also, the air was now electric every time they came close to each other. Pietro knew he was skilled, but there was no way on Earth he could have imagined that.  
  
"Why me?" he whined and then promptly slapped himself for being such a brat.  
  
His toe hurt.  
  
Ding-Dong!  
  
"Lance, the door!"  
  
Ding-Dong!  
  
"Lance!"  
  
Ding-  
  
"LANCE!"  
  
-Dong!  
  
He sighed and limped down the stairs at super-speed, opening the door to Satan personified.  
  
"Like, hey Pietro!"  
  
He really didn't see why somebody who was able to phase through walls should bother with doorbells, but then she was stupid. Really stupid.  
  
"Like, Kitty, how totally awesome to see you!" he snarled, knowing he was being pathetic. It was hardly her fault that Lance liked her better after all. It wasn't her fault that Lance would rather celebrate with her than his worthy servant. It was just easier to hate her than it was to hate Lance.  
  
He was expecting some kind of reaction from the overenthusiastic X-Geek, but she wasn't even looking at him. She was staring over his shoulder with a nauseatingly sickly smile on her face.  
  
"Lance!" she cried, running straight through the speed demon and throwing her arms around the boy's neck. Pietro seethed as Lance openly ogled her figure in that tight little uniform of hers, extremely glad that he was not able to use his hands yet.  
  
"Well, three's company," he muttered and sped upstairs, not sorry at all to see the back of them.  
  
Lance started to become bored in the embrace. Damn, he wanted her. When was she going to stop hugging and start doing the obscene things he'd dreamt about? He wanted her to touch him like Piet- no, that hadn't happened. Now Kitty was here, that incident was unimportant.  
  
Somewhere in Lance's rather deluded mind, he had accepted his new feelings for Pietro. The only problem was that he had twisted them into something quite different from what they actually were. The way he wanted to see it, all the pent-up desire had confused him and made him think that he loved Pietro. He didn't, of course. What a ridiculous thought, falling for the speedster after that silly incident with the heartbeat and the intense eye contact and the.  
  
"Kitty, go out with me!" he blurted out. God, he wanted to touch her so much. When was this paralysis going to go away completely so he could have his wicked way with her?  
  
"Oh my god, Lance, like, yes, totally!" She threw her arms around him again and pressed her lips to his tightly. What should have resulted in fireworks and violins for Lance actually left him cold. Kissing was boring. Sex was good, though. Sex sex sex.  
  
Oh yes.  
  
Oh no. Wasn't she even going to use tongue? This was not turning him on at all. Now Pietro last night, that was a different story. That was kissing. But wait, he wasn't supposed to think about that any more. No.. Sexy Kitty. Nipples.  
  
Lance pushed his tongue into her mouth. He had to heat things up. He wanted her body, not her heart or soul. He wanted sex, for God's sake.  
  
"Like, ewww, Lance!" Kitty cried, pushing him away. "Tell me next time you're going to do that!"  
  
And with that, Miss Pryde phased through the door and marched off. Lance's head spun. So, he wanted her sexually. But he couldn't be that shallow, right? He had deeper feelings, he knew he did; just not for her.  
  
He sighed. Like everything else in his excuse for a life, things were getting complicated.  
  
He didn't know what he wanted anymore. 


	4. Nausea

Confused, Lance stared at the scrawled note in Todd's spidery hand.  
  
'Lance- see breast 3.30'  
  
It was now twenty-five minutes past three. Was it really necessary to schedule seeing a breast- and, thinking about it, why only one breast? Whose breast was Todd referring to? Was Kitty coming over- had she finally given in?  
  
Yes, that must be it! Deep down, she was probably as sex-obsessed as he was. Now, finally, he was going to see what he'd been fantasising about ever since knowing her and wasn't it so horribly ironic that he couldn't touch?  
  
"Hey, Todd left a message?"  
  
Lance snapped out of his reverie to see Pietro studying the note.  
  
"Yeah," he murmured dreamily. "I'm gonna see some boobs."  
  
Pietro gave him a very funny look. Last time he checked, Dr Henry McCoy alias Beast was hardly well endowed.  
  
"Er, Lance. I-"  
  
Then, suddenly, it clicked. Beast. Breast. See Beast, see breast. It was an easy enough mistake to make, but an infuriating one. A definite Freudian slip; another indicator that Alvers Was Straight.  
  
"Jesus, Alvers, will you get your mind out of your pants just once? See 'Beast', you asshole. You know, as in the blue, furry X-Freak? Yes? Comprende?"  
  
Lance mumbled incoherently, brown hair hanging in his face. He could feel it again. Every time the speed demon was close enough it was like receiving a minor electric shock. First there was the pain and the surprise, then the excitement and later the numbness. He knew that he never felt like that around Kitty.  
  
"Now we have to get to the X-Zoo in three minutes. Thanks, Lance."  
  
Pietro scowled. He knew he was only angry at Lance because he was jealous. Lance liked women. Lance liked breasts. He wasn't a woman and therefore he'd never have breasts.  
  
Lance paled. "You're not taking the jeep." Like his guitar, Lance was extremely fond of the jeep. Pietro suspected that it was called Kitty too.  
  
"Fine," said Pietro with a casual shrug and no sooner had he hoisted Lance over his shoulder with surprising strength. "We'll run."  
  
For a second, Lance couldn't help but enjoy the moment. The little sparks between them were now growing into explosions, fireworks and symphonies. His face was buried into that pale, slender back and he was breathing Pietro's intoxicating scent.  
  
However, as things usually are with Quicksilver, the moment was very short lived. The boy took off and the very little power of rational thought that Lance had gave way.  
  
Everything was fast, too fast. His pulse was no longer a beat, but a hum. Everything was a blur, nothing had a true colour or shape. He was no longer himself- not a body or a person or a thing.  
  
Lance couldn't say he enjoyed living life in the fast lane too much.  
  
What could only have been seconds later, the boys arrived at the mansion. It took Lance a while to adjust himself and ease himself back into normal rhythms.  
  
"Thanks for warning me about the motion sickness," snapped Pietro, glaring at a rather green Lance. Great, he actually made Lance physically sick now. Hurrah.  
  
"It'll wash out," moaned Lance, looking utterly wretched. To his own horror, Pietro felt that dreadful gentleness that Lance always seemed to bring about coming back.  
  
"You OK?" he asked, slinging an arm around Lance's shoulders. What he wouldn't give to pull him into a hug and smooth that unruly brown hair..  
  
Lance nodded, wanting nothing more than to rest his head on the other boy's shoulder and forget that anything else existed. But that, of course, was wrong. He didn't want to get all cosy with Pietro, for God's sake! All he wanted and needed was sex, from a girl no less.  
  
Doctor Hank McCoy strolled across the lawn, blue fur shining in the sun and reflecting to give everything a strange, grey haze.  
  
"Good afternoon, boys!" he cried, giving a falsely dazzling smile. The pair of them scowled back.  
  
"Are you ready for your tests, Lance? Oh dear. You do look off-colour, have you been sick?"  
  
Pietro rolled his eyes. As if the man couldn't tell he was covered in Lance's vomit.  
  
"Well, this won't take long. Come with me," the Beast continued, clapping his own hand on Lance's shoulder. An ill disguised look of contempt on his furry face showed that he didn't want Pietro anywhere near the mansion looking and smelling like he did.  
  
Pietro crossed his arms and leant back against a tree as Lance was led away. Things would be so much simpler if he had just fallen for an X-Geek.  
  
*  
  
"Yeah," Lance sighed as they turned a corner. "He said the paralysis is going away."  
  
"Isn't that a good thing?"  
  
Lance kicked a pile of leaves and watched them scatter around him. He had got his own way and insisted they walked home instead of running. Pietro hadn't argued too much, not sounding very fond of the idea of a repeat performance.  
  
"Not really," Lance shook his head. Did Pietro have to wrap an arm across his shoulders like that, even if it was just for support? "It's gonna come back gradually, he said. I mean, I was expecting that but I thought it'd take two weeks max. Well, no such luck," he sighed again. "I've got another month of this."  
  
"What a bitch," Pietro replied, rapidly losing concentration. Lance still needed him. He could have him for just another few weeks; still hold him up when they walked and turn out his light at night.  
  
"Which is why I've decided to let you go," Lance said thoughtfully. "I mean, I like your help and all but you have a life too."  
  
'No!' Pietro cried silently, expressing all the things he would never dream of saying for fear of sounding melodramatic or worse, feminine. 'I don't have a life! My life is you!'  
  
"I'm sure Todd or Fred will do your job. Maybe Kitty can help out at weekends."  
  
'They don't know you like I know you!' whined Pietro's brain. 'They don't know anything about you! And don't think I'll let that. strumpet into the house and leave her in charge of you! She doesn't care about you, only I do and I want to be the one to help you!'  
  
"Lance," Pietro said, shaking his head violently to shut his brain up. "Mystique put me in charge. She knows best, right?"  
  
"Maybe." Lance wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but he seemed to feel Pietro's grip tighten on his shoulder in an almost possessive manner. "But.. this stuff that happened between us, it's gonna make things awkward as hell."  
  
"It has already," muttered Pietro.  
  
They walked for at least five minutes in an uncomfortable silence. Neither of them knew what to say or what they trusted themselves to tell the other. A silent agreement seemed to have been made between them that Pietro would carry on caring for Lance which they both desired and dreaded at the same time.  
  
Then, suddenly, the silence was broken.  
  
"LANCE!"  
  
Before either of them were able to recognise the source of the voice, a fluffy pink blur had pushed Pietro aside and thrown itself at the unsuspecting Avalanche.  
  
"Er, Kitty?" Lance guessed. He thought he knew the scent, something sweet like strawberries. It made him feel a little queasy in reality, but he deluded himself in believing that the scent turned him on.  
  
'Pietro smells much better,' he thought to himself as she clung to his neck. 'And he doesn't hug like a limpet.'  
  
Wait, what was he thinking? This was Kitty, the girl he wanted like mad. He'd just asked her out. Yes, her body pressing against him was nice, he could feel her breasts pressing against his chest..  
  
"Lance, are you, like, okay?" she asked, her lip quivering in a way that made Pietro want to punch her very hard. She was playing that irresistible 'Bambi' card. "We saw you talking to Doctor McCoy."  
  
"Yes, otherwise known as the incredible Breast," snarled Pietro. Kitty wrinkled her nose at him and her eyes strayed to his stained top.  
  
"Ew, gross, Pietro! You, like, totally stink!"  
  
"Blame Lance," Pietro shrugged. Bad move. Kitty put on the doe eyes and started feeling Lance's forehead for a fever.  
  
"Oh, poor baby! Are you sick?"  
  
Lance frowned. Did she have to baby him like that? He didn't want a mother, he wanted a whore.  
  
"No. Nothing like that. Actually, Kitty, I'm getting better. In about a month I'll have my arms back!"  
  
She squealed. Pietro couldn't abide girls who did that. Especially not ones who were hanging off his Lance like that.  
  
"And then I'm gonna take you out," Lance told her. He thought that adding the last part 'and fuck you until I can't even remember who Pietro is anymore' wouldn't exactly sit well.  
  
"Oh, yay!" Kitty simpered and then put on her best baby face. "Gee, Lance, I've, like, gotta go do my homework. Ring me, 'kay?"  
  
"Yeah," Lance nodded boredly. She kissed him on the cheek and ran off.  
  
He hadn't even noticed that she kissed him.  
  
*  
  
Later that night, Lance lay on his bed tormented by thoughts. This was not a regular occurrence for him. Normally, he was a very primitive creature ruled by eating, sleeping, breathing and thinking about sex but Pietro had changed everything. When he'd felt that separate pulse under his fingers, feelings that he never knew he was capable of had arisen.  
  
What did it all mean?  
  
Did he have a crush on Pietro like he did on Kitty? No, that wasn't possible. The feelings were so different. He only wanted Kitty for sex and he wanted Pietro for much, much more.  
  
Was he in love with Pietro? Did he love Kitty even a little bit? Was he gay, or straight or bisexual?  
  
He was a mess. That was what he was.  
  
Little scenes played out in his head, one involving Kitty and one in Pietro. The aim was to understand his feelings for them, if that was even possible.  
  
'So, Kitty,' fictional Lance asked. 'What shall we do now?'  
  
' Let's, like, screw again!' she cried.  
  
So the lust was evident, if nothing else. How about the speed demon?  
  
'So, Pietro,' smiled fictional Lance. 'What shall we do now?'  
  
Little fictional Pietro shrugged. They were both shirtless and his slender, white shoulders rolled with the gesture.  
  
'We don't have to do anything,' fictional Pietro said softly and stoked the imaginary Lance's cheek. Fictional Lance pulled fictional Pietro into lap and embraced him sweetly.  
  
'I love you,' whispered fictional Lance as he brushed a milky white cheek with his lips. 'I always will.'  
  
Factual Lance's eyes flew open in shock. That was certainly ominous. Why him? Why now?  
  
Why love? 


	5. Brunhilde's torment

Thanks as usual to you luvverly reviewers. You keep me going with this story (and believe me, I find it very difficult to continue my fics!)  
  
Er. this chapter may not make sense, I haven't read it over. But basically, Lance is becoming one screwed up boy.. And if you think this is bad, just wait until the paralysis goes away!  
  
*  
  
There was no chance of sleeping that night for Lance. Thoughts were running through his mind faster than an electrically charged Pietro on speed running in a hamster wheel. He didn't understand what he felt or what to do about it, but he wished that his mind could be as blissfully empty as it once was; back in the good old days of caveman-want.  
  
He was also cold. In a moment of extreme annoyance, he had kicked off his covers. He knew now that it was stupid and brattish- Pietroesque in fact, and being unable to pull the covers back up he had to suffer for it.  
  
Lance frowned into his pillow. He seemed to be making an awful lot of comparisons involving Pietro. Couldn't that boy stay off his mind for one second? It was like that awful chat-up line he had tried and failed on Pryde herself: "Are you tired, because you've been running through my mind all day?" How fitting it was for the speed demon!  
  
Pietro this, Pietro that. Didn't Kitty count for anything anymore? Kitty, the girl who he was now supposed to be going out with. Kitty, with the great tits and the cute smile and the great tits and-  
  
And so the cycle began again. He lusted after her, he loved Pietro. Sex against romance. Girl against boy. One night stand against a life-time's happiness.  
  
How the hell could he make a choice like that when he could barely decide what colour socks to wear?  
  
Lance flung himself unceremoniously out of bed and shimmied up the wall until he was standing. Sleep was pointless now. He stumbled on to the landing as best he could, trying his hardest not to wake Pietro. Sweet Pietro, he must sleep like an angel..  
  
'Shut up!' he screamed silently at his mind, causing himself to almost fall down the stairs. He was slowly perfecting the art of walking without the balance of his arms, even if it meant having to skirt around walls all the time.  
  
He was relieved to find that their ancient TV was already on. It would have been such a bitch to have to try and manoeuvre the remote control by foot again. Plonking himself into a threadbare armchair, a loud grunting snore told Lance that he was not alone.  
  
There was Fred in his usual post. A large groove had formed in the chair which held his vast buttocks for days on end. Lance could see a slug's trail of saliva trickling down one of his chins. Freddy slept like the dead.  
  
He turned his attention back to the television screen. Even though the volume was up quite high, there was very little sound other than the occasional educated drone. There were three people sitting around a hexagonal table, oddly enough and Lance noted that all of them were revoltingly unattractive.  
  
"I have to disagree, Martha," an overweight man in a coral suit drawled. "It's a fable ahead of its time. I find the character analysis absolutely staggering."  
  
Lance sighed. Why on Earth did it have to be a Literary Criticism programme, of all things? And why on Earth did he have to be incapable of changing the channel?  
  
Life. Wasn't. Fair.  
  
"Gaylord has a point," pointed out a toady looking woman in grey. "As we see in chapter sixteen, Brunhilde reacts in a very different way to other characters of the day."  
  
Brunhilde? Lance rolled his eyes. If only he could pick up that remote and switch it over. It was just gone two in the morning- perfect porn time. Lots of breasts bouncing about and naked women screaming and.. Mmm.  
  
"Yah," the other woman nodded so vigorously that her oversize glasses almost fell off. "The emotional triangle, if you will, between Brunhilde, Nigel and Flambard begins in chapter six when.. Blah blah blah, blah, blah? Blah blah. Sex, sex, porn. Blah blah sex, sex."  
  
Lance shook himself. He couldn't remember ever having to listen to something so dull.  
  
"Brunhilde's torment begins when she is injured in a particularly nasty accident. She falls under her father's horse and is trampled into the ground. The accident causes her a temporary paralysis."  
  
On hearing these words, Lance became more alert. He knew how poor Brunhilde felt and suddenly, though loath to admit it, wanted to know what fate she befell.  
  
"Her butler, Flambard, is called upon to look after her. Her father forbids her from seeing her lover, Nigel and she begins to weaken with unresolved desire."  
  
Unresolved desire? He definitely knew all about that one. Definitely.  
  
"Brunhilde misses Nigel's company so much that she unwittingly transforms her feelings for him to Flambard. She believes that she loves Flambard, for he has provided and cared for her in such a way that Nigel cannot when really, she feels nothing. Her mind has simply become confused."  
  
Lance blinked once, then twice. He put himself in Brunhilde's place, Kitty in Nigel's and Pietro in Flambard's. Wasn't it possible that the same thing had happened to him and he didn't really feel a thing for Pietro? Yes, he simply needed Kitty so much his mind tricked him into having feelings for somebody more. accessible. It made sense, right?  
  
What did Brunhilde do to cure herself of this affliction?  
  
"What did she do?" he hissed at the TV in desperation. As if the three figures on the screen were mind-readers, they answered him.  
  
"In a terribly fevered state, Brunhilde begs Flambard to take her to Nigel's family mansion. She tells Flambard that she will kill herself otherwise and being hopelessly in love with her, the butler complies. She believes that, in the arms of Nigel, all her feelings for Flambard will disappear."  
  
This was too good to be true. So all he had to do was find Kitty, have sex with her and he'd forget about Pietro? He praised the author of the book for an answer to all his troubles. Soon, he'd be back to his simple old self without a care in the world and not only that- he'd get to have sex!  
  
Of course, somewhere in the back of Lance's mind, he knew how stupid he was being. Feelings just didn't go away like that. This wasn't some period romance novel, this was real life. Pietro wasn't Flambard, Kitty wasn't Nigel and he certainly wasn't Brunhilde. Much as he wanted them to, things just didn't work out like that.  
  
Sadly, Lance's sensibility was barely registered. Denial was beginning to rule him. 'Fuck Kitty and it'll be okay,' he told himself. 'Pietro who?'  
  
A gust of wind blew through the room and Pietro himself appeared in front of Lance.  
  
"Flambard! Ah- Pietro!" Lance cried. He could feel his heart beating at three times its normal speed. Pietro looked heavenly when sleep ruffled and he desperately wanted to hug him there and then. No, he reminded himself. The feelings weren't real, the lit crit show said so.  
  
"Flambard?" Pietro raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. He zipped into the kitchen and appeared in less than a second with a glass of water.  
  
"Can't sleep?" he asked, large blue eyes fixed upon Lance in a way that made him squirm.  
  
"Couldn't if I tried," sighed Lance. "Too many.. feelings." His eyes widened. No! He was not about to tell Pietro about those feelings, he was not! Besides, hadn't the show just told him they were bullshit?  
  
"I don't know what's what anymore," he mumbled, not having meant to say it aloud.  
  
Pietro rested his chin on his hand and stared unblinkingly at Lance. Confessions of emotion were very, very rare for Alvers.  
  
"I mean, Kitty and. you know," sighed Lance. He had blown it. Completely and utterly. "I don't know what to do and I don't understand it."  
  
Pietro quickly downed the glass of water and gave Lance another long look. Was he doubting his feelings for Pryde? Was that even possible?  
  
Of course it wasn't. He hated the paralysis because it prevented him from doing the one thing he really needed, hence the hand job incident. He still wanted Kitty, possibly more, and why? Because He Was Straight!  
  
Damn, he hated loving Lance.  
  
"Just fuck her," Pietro muttered, finding himself suddenly unable to make eye contact with Lance for fear of bursting into girlish streams of tears. "The minute you get your arms back, just fuck her."  
  
And fuck you, Pietro added mentally as he left the room. 


	6. Realisation

Loving your reviews, as ever! I might not be able to update for a while so I hope this is an enjoyable chapter for youse lot..  
  
And kickassangel, of course they were going to end up together! Which brings me on to the subject of this chapter. Because I might not be able to write for a while I've moved the story on so if it seems a bit sudden or off character (not to mention confusing) I do apologise.  
  
Vive la Pietrance! (heheheh.. like vive la resistance.. ahem. Yeah.)  
  
*  
  
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Lance stumbled up the stairs after Pietro. He cursed his poor balance as the rug slipped under his feet and threatened to take him with it. Stupid stairs. Stupid confused feelings. Stupid, stupid Brunhilde!  
  
He wasn't quite sure how, but eventually he arrived at Pietro's room. The boy in question sat on his bed glaring at the wall with a death stare. His bottom lip stuck out and his arms were tightly folded in utter irritation. He didn't turn his head, but he seemed to sense Lance's presence. Lance found himself hoping that Pietro hadn't developed a telepathy gift; there were things going through his head that he never wanted the speed demon to see.  
  
"Yes?" Pietro looked away from the wall for a second, treating Lance to the killer glare. There was something of a Spanish Inquisitional about him which made Lance feel obliged to tell the truth.  
  
"I'm. not sure I want to," he mumbled, wishing that he could hide himself in some way with his hands or arms. He was just too vulnerable right then. Pietro threw him a questioning, though still indignant look. "Fuck Kitty," added Lance quietly.  
  
Pietro rolled his eyes. Was Lance really such an idiot that he didn't know his own feelings? Of course he wanted her. God knows they'd all heard enough about it. 'Kitty looks so hot' or 'Kitty smells so good', Kitty, Kitty, Kitty-Kitty-Kitty.  
  
"Don't be an ass, Lance," he spat, immediately evoking unwanted thoughts of Lance's posterior. "She's all you've talked about for days. And she's your girlfriend now."  
  
Pietro was reverting to spoilt brat form again. 'She's your girlfriend now' was delivered in much the same way as 'she's a vast, green, squidgy, quivering lump of toxic slime' might be. Whether it was Pietro's delivery or the realisation that he actually had a girlfriend hitting home, Lance's face fell.  
  
"But.. I didn't want it to be like that," he muttered, looking up through his hair. "I don't want her to be my girlfriend."  
  
"What, you're preying on some other syrupy X-Chick now?"  
  
Lance shook his head. If only it were that simple! Pietro carried on guessing, acting as if he hated Lance's company but secretly hoping to keep him there for as long as possible.  
  
"You didn't want anything deep with Shitty Pryde?"  
  
This time, Lance's eyes met Pietro's wide and disturbed. Pietro finally felt that he was getting somewhere.  
  
"All you ever wanted was to screw her and now you're scared she wants something more than that?"  
  
With more than a slight resemblance to a wounded puppy, Lance nodded his head slowly. Pietro found that he had to desperately fight the urge to run over and cuddle all the air out of him.  
  
"And I thought I was shallow," Pietro shook his head in disbelief. Lance truly was an idiot. A gorgeous, sexy idiot but an idiot nonetheless.  
  
"That's just it!" Lance cried, suddenly becoming excited. The comment didn't seem to have stung him at all. "I was shallow! All I ever used to think about was sex and.. and her. But.. but something's changed, Pietro and I'm not half as shallow as I thought I was. I actually have thoughts and feelings! Feelings about.. about love!"  
  
Pietro stared at Lance, but this time in shock. He'd always known that Lance wasn't the brightest of people, but he'd never expected that mind to have been completely empty. By then, Lance was completely lost in his own confession and babbling incessantly.  
  
".. Kissed me. didn't feel right.. strawberries really make me feel sick, you know. so boring, only wanted sex.. heartbeat- completely out there, you know?.. weird feelings. denial I suppose. Brunhilde didn't understand! She wanted Flambard, Flambard damn it!"  
  
Caught in the midst of his passionate spiel, Lance tried to gesticulate before remembering his paralysis and overbalancing. He grinned up from the floor at Pietro sheepishly, but Pietro looked back blankly. Flambard? Wasn't that what Lance had called him earlier?  
  
"Huh?" asked the speed demon, ever articulate.  
  
"Whoa, sorry," Lance smiled. It felt good to get things off his chest. He knew he'd regret it soon enough, but for now he revelled in the lightness of it all. "Guess you know what it's like to have hyper-speech hurled at you now."  
  
Pietro yawned and hung upside down off his bed. "I'd hardly call that hyper- speed. Maybe for a slug like you, but not for me. You just mumble too much."  
  
Lance found Pietro's current pose extremely distracting. It was hard not to notice the way his top rode up that slim, white midriff and exposed a perfect navel.  
  
"I. I.. er. I.. yeah.. mumble too much, huh?"  
  
"Evidently."  
  
A long silence followed. Slowly, Lance began to come back to senses. All the revelations he'd made in those past few minutes flooded his mind. He really didn't want to fuck Kitty. Why had it taken Pietro's suggestion to make him see that? Had he ever wanted her, or used that 'desire' to mask certain other feelings? No, that was going too deep. He was not skilled in analysis of any kind.  
  
His mind wandered back to that moment in the living room.  
  
"Just fuck her," Pietro had said in a small and contained voice. "The minute you get your arms back, just fuck her."  
  
And he'd left. The first thing Lance had thought was a defiant 'No'. No, he did not want to fuck Kitty thank you very much. Then he'd questioned his answer, then realised that it was stupid. Of course he wanted to have sex with her! Hadn't he been fantasising about it for weeks, months, years? Yeah. He wanted her.  
  
But try as he might, he couldn't feel the same about her. He pictured her naked several times in his head, traced those pert breasts out perfectly. He imagined touching her and doing all manner of obscene things to the girl; and yet he felt nothing. Could desire burn out as easily as that?  
  
Pietro's face kept flickering between the self-created semi-pornographic images. Yes, that was what he wanted. Not Kitty. Pietro now.  
  
The next thing he recalled, he was in Pietro's room. He wasn't sure what he was going to do or say, but practical Lance had long since left the building.  
  
It didn't look like he'd be returning any time soon either.  
  
"Pietro, let me feel your heart again," Lance blurted out, breaking the silence with his strange request.  
  
Pietro rolled off his bed and frowned in confusion. "Why?"  
  
"I want to."  
  
Holding Lance's hand to his heart and letting him feel the rhythms had been so intense. If anything, he thought he'd freaked Lance out by the whole experience but that couldn't be so. Not if he said he wanted to. But what did that mean?  
  
"You're weird, Alvers, anyone ever tell you that?"  
  
For a moment, Lance thought that Pietro was yet again sneering at him but the blue eyes were soft as the boy knelt beside him.  
  
"Then I guess you're weird too," Lance told him as Pietro's fingers laced with his. The electric bolts of attraction returned with a vengeance and Lance heard his own breathing quicken as his hand was guided up Pietro's top to that familiar spot.  
  
Brown eyes met blue as Pietro's fast heartbeat ran through Lance's body again. Staring into those eyes, Lance knew that something was true in this world. The feeling was still there, if not twice as intense.  
  
He was no longer a simpleton caveman, but a man with proper emotions. How could he ever have wanted to choose Kitty over Pietro? Pietro was handsome and funny and kind (though Lance was the only person who knew this and he was keen to keep it that way) whilst Kitty was just supposedly screwable. This moment was beautiful, Pietro was beautiful and something told him that being with Pietro would be beautiful too.  
  
"Beautiful," Lance thought aloud, making a conscious decision to extend his vocabulary. He still found the feeling of the pulse running through his fingers unbelievable. At risk of sounding nauseatingly sentimental, it made them one.  
  
Pietro's eyes gleamed and his mouth curled into a small smile. Underneath it all, he was a hopeless romantic. Perhaps there was a shred of hope for him and Lance- wasn't it worth trying anyway? If he never had another chance, now was the time. For a start, Lance could hardly push him away and it wasn't as if they hadn't kissed before. Only then, Lance had been imagining he was-  
  
"Do you love her- Kitty?" he asked quietly. Lance could feel cold breath on his neck as Pietro's hair gleamed oddly in the dim fluorescent light.  
  
"No! Didn't you listen to me? I don't even like her."  
  
That was all the response Pietro needed. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for a kiss but before he could even manage to lean in, Lance's lips were on his own. This time, the kiss was not violent or possessive. It still burned with passion, but with all the hormones flying around that could only be expected. Lance's hand stayed right on Pietro's heart, clamped by the speed demon's sweaty hand as their tongues explored the new territory of each other's mouth.  
  
After what seemed far too soon, Pietro pulled away. They were both panting, faces gleaming with sweat. It shocked Lance how much more Pietro's heartbeat had increased- it now ran through him like a jarring buzz.  
  
"Tell me you meant that," demanded the speed demon, gripping the sides of Lance's face as he stared into his eyes wildly.  
  
"I meant it," Lance croaked. He felt completely intoxicated.  
  
Pietro's grip slackened a little and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Tell me again."  
  
"I meant it," repeated Lance, more to himself than to Pietro. In his giddy state, he could only just take in the meaning of his words. No other kiss had ever left him feeling like this. Nothing could compare to the high he was on; of want and need and warmth and freshness. He took Pietro's lips again in a short, smouldering kiss for confirmation.  
  
"I meant it," he said once more, mouth forming words against Pietro's classically sculpted cheekbone.  
  
And he knew that he did. 


	7. Clean and New

Wheee.. Thanks for reviewing. I think I should probably communicate more with you readers.. so, maybe in the next chapter? I'm a lazy thing.  
  
*  
  
Lance was taking off in a pink rocket. He had his feet up on the dashboard and was nibbling on a long carrot. Sheathed in his belt was a sword and over his shoulder he had a large, heavy rifle. Looking out of the window, he could see vast black horses galloping through space, kicking up clouds of nuclear dust as they went. He could see rows of skyscrapers rising majestically from the surface of little planets and as he came closer, statues of himself with one fist raised in triumph came into view.  
  
Suddenly, Todd was in the rocket dressed as a town-crier and holding a large bell. The pendulum swung back and forth, back and forth, ring the bell, ring the bell. Ding dong, ding dong, light, dark, light, dark, light-  
  
What?!  
  
Coming slowly back to the world of the conscious, Lance could feel an incessant flickering of the light falling upon his face. It was incredibly irritating, particularly for one who couldn't roll over or bury themselves under a pillow to block out the offending flashing.  
  
Reluctantly, he opened one eye to see the source of the problem. There it was, standing by the window with a mischievous glint in his eye, pulling the curtains open then shut.  
  
Pietro Maximoff, nuisance extraordinaire.  
  
"Mmmmphuukkkhh offphhh Pyedrohh," Lance mumbled, eloquent as ever.  
  
"Wakey-wakey, Lancelot!" chirped Pietro in response. Lance began to wish that looks could kill, or at least wipe the smile off that smug little face, that handsome face with the very kissable mouth and the. This wasn't his room! Which meant that it wasn't his bed. Which could mean all kinds of things.  
  
"This is your room," remarked Lance as he inhaled Pietro's faint scent from the pillow.  
  
"Yes, Lance, good boy!" Pietro gushed in a voice not unlike Jean Grey's when talking to somebody either foreign or considerably more stupid than her. "And do you know your ABC?"  
  
Lance shot him another evil look. Oh yes. He was mastering it now. Soon he would be able to burn holes through people with a blink alone.  
  
Pietro sighed theatrically and opened the curtains properly. "Seriously, nothing happened. You fell asleep there and I took the floor. What," he added, rolling his eyes. "You think I'm going to take advantage of a poor semi-quadriplegic?"  
  
"A semi-what?"  
  
"Look it up."  
  
Lance yawned, letting Pietro examine his face with an adorably wrinkled nose.  
  
"You need a shave," the speed demon declared as if Lance's very life depended upon it. "You need a shave and your hair could do with a wash."  
  
"No-oooo," whined Lance. "Lemme sleep."  
  
Pietro tutted and shook his finger mockingly as he looked down his long nose in melodramatic scorn. "Don't you know sloth is one of the seven deadly sins?"  
  
"So's pride," Lance replied, catching Pietro tweaking his hair as he peered at his reflection in the chrome alarm clock. Why was Pietro being so damn annoying anyway?  
  
This was left unanswered as the boy in question swiftly ripped the covers off his bed and pulled Lance up with him. For a few seconds, Pietro stared into his eyes and Lance wondered if he was going to get another kiss but something forced the icy blue eyes to look away. The moment was lost and Pietro slung an arm around Lance's waist in a comradely fashion as they walked to the bathroom.  
  
"Ugh," Lance remarked, as Pietro placed a stool by the sink and motioned for him to sit. "It smells like Todd in here. Have we got hot water?"  
  
Pietro ran the tap and seconds later, shook his head. Lance began to protest- there was no way in hell he was washing his hair in cold water.  
  
"Worry not," the speed demon proclaimed and zipped downstairs. Lance could hear the kettle being boiled and began to worry. The idea of having boiling water tipped all over his head appealed to him even less than freezing water. Luckily, Pietro appeared to have taken the kettle off before the telltale ping of it having boiled and was back with a jug of warm water in no time.  
  
"The things I do for you," Pietro teased as he snatched up a few bottles from the side of the bath. It was only then that it occurred to Lance that Pietro might just be happy for the first time in ages. He had a tendency to be a little.. irritating when he was cheerful after all. Did that mean that the kiss had made him happy?  
  
Suddenly, Lance felt Pietro's slim body pressing into his back, cool hands tilting his head down as the water rushed over his head.  
  
"Too hot?" Pietro asked. 'Hell yeah,' thought Lance. Having Pietro that close gave him more than shivers up his spine, that much was certain.  
  
"It's.. fine," Lance mumbled, struggling to get any words out. It was more than he could bear as Pietro leaned even closer into him, beginning to massage his scalp with skilled fingers. The fresh, lemony scent of the shampoo was what he had inhaled from the boy's pillow that morning.  
  
"So. Any sign of your arms coming back?" the speed demon enquired as he rubbed gentle circles into Lance's temples. He could feel Lance's body slackening against his with the relaxing massage. Lance himself was in utter bliss, transported back to the times when his mother used to wash his hair like that. Nobody had cared for him in that way for a long time and there was absolute perfection in the way that Pietro's fingers caressed his scalp, never creating tangles or pressing too hard. It was. heavenly.  
  
"I can feel something in my thumb," Lance replied, his voice softening with calm. "A kind of tingling."  
  
"Great, the paralysis will be gone before you know it." And we'll be able to do all kinds of naughty things, Pietro added silently.  
  
"Yeah," Lance sighed wistfully. "Though I could get used to this kind of treatment, you know.Mmmmmmm."  
  
Pietro grinned and continued kneading Lance's scalp. The small noises of contentment Lance was making were starting to get him a little hot and bothered. Another throaty sigh from the boy caused Pietro to press himself up tighter against him and to rub the shampoo into his hair like he was caressing entirely different parts of the body.  
  
"Do you ever think about the future, Lance?"  
  
Lance blinked bubbles out of his eyes. "I used to. I used to want the standard things; a wife and kids and a house somewhere nice.. Maybe a dog. They had a dog at one of my foster homes- Lucky; I think she was a golden retriever. I sometimes wonder what happened to them- the foster family and the dog. She'd be pretty old now.  
  
Sometimes I think I'd still like to have kids. It'd be cool to be a dad.. I wouldn't screw it up like mine did. I guess I like the thought of having something to look after. What about you?"  
  
"Kids? No." Lance was aggrieved to find that the massage came to an end as Pietro drenched his hair with more water. "My dad put me off for life. Other than that. I don't know, don't really want specific things. Glory, maybe. Definitely love."  
  
Pietro began to work conditioner through Lance's hair, stroking from root to tip. Lance arched into the touch again, feeling a strange mix of contentment, completion and arousal.  
  
"You are. fucking. beautiful," Lance sighed, beginning to think that he was enjoying the whole experience far too much. Pietro raised an eyebrow, his fingers stopping at Lance's neck. Only yesterday Lance had been convinced that he loved Kitty. Then he said he didn't. Then he'd kissed him, and hadn't he said that he meant it? It was all happening too fast; part of him wanted to let go and run.  
  
"Pietro?"  
  
The boy blinked and started to rub in the last of the conditioner, watching the way Lance's wet hair shone in the light.  
  
"Last night, I meant it. I said it loads of times and I'll say it again- just.. believe me."  
  
"I don't know," Pietro muttered in an uncharacteristically small voice. He emptied the jug over Lance's head, letting the conditioner rinse out. When he was sure that the boy's hair was clean, he took a fluffy towel and wrapped it around Lance's head in a turban before turning him round to face him.  
  
"Why don't you know?" Lance pressed as Pietro began to slap shaving cream on to his face. A firey gleam in the blue eyes distinctly said 'drop it', but Lance was not one for reading people. "Pietro, I know I'm a jerk but I'm not a liar and never have been. Have I ever lied to you?"  
  
Pietro had to admit that he hadn't.  
  
"I'm scared of this too, you know," Lance continued. He had never heard himself speak so freely or articulately. This was not a conversation he'd be having with Kitty-that is, if they would ever happen to talk at all amid all the rampant sex. "It's all really new to me. You know what a dumbass I was before all this."  
  
Something in Lance's words and soft voice crushed the insecurities. 'Stop being a pansy!' he screamed at himself mentally. 'He's gorgeous and he wants you. Get in there, boyo!'  
  
A slender, almost feminine hand took Lance by the chin impulsively. "Stop talking."  
  
Then, Pietro brought his lips to Lance's with hungry fervour. He licked at Lance's bottom lip impatiently until the boy opened his mouth to accommodate his tongue. He tasted every corner of Lance's mouth, imagining that he was making it his. His hands slid around the boy's naked back and chest, copying the motions he had used on Lance's scalp. The shaving cream was cold against his skin, a bizarre contrast to the searing heat of the kiss.  
  
When the kiss finally ended, the two boys sat staring at each other. It was a beautiful, confused moment made strange by Lance's turban and the way their faces were both smeared with cream. The passion soon rolled away and the bizarreness of their appearances sank in, starting off a hysterical fit of laughter.  
  
There was definitely something odd about those boys.  
  
*  
  
Ah yes.. If you were wondering, that WAS all phallic imagery in Lance's dream. It's a little symbolic of the new feelings Pietro has awakened in him.  
  
Leave a review. You know you want to. Ah, go on.. 


	8. Unsure of yourself, Eight letters

Ta for the reviews!  
  
Blech.. I'm not. sure about this chapter. Just when it was getting happy- TA-DA!- we have insecure Pietro. Don't worry- some chapters will be happy, some angsty, I'm just trying to explore some different aspects. I also wanted to reintroduce Kitty- me, I agree that Lance needs to dump her skinny arse!  
  
Now, Piet might seem a bit creepy in this chapter. This is because I am reading Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (a damn fine author) for English Lit and getting a bit.. influenced by it. Enduring Love is about a bloke with a gay stalker, you see. So if Pietro is too creepy blame McEwan. I also think Pietro is a bit yucky and romantic-fictionesque at the end. But ah well. C'est la vie, n'est pas?  
  
You might notice that I'm looking more closely at the title Release and seeing how to tie it in. Will it end happily? Mwah ha ha. You'll just have to wait and see (and so will I, come to think of it!)  
  
Enjoy!  
  
*  
  
Ring Ring! Ring Ring!  
  
Scribble scribble.  
  
Ring Ri-  
  
"Purple. Five letters."  
  
Ring Ring! Ring!  
  
"Violet?"  
  
"'kay. V-I-O-L-E- Damn you, Lance!"  
  
Scribble scribble scribble.  
  
Ring Ring! Ring Ring!  
  
"Wait Lance- where're you going? Don't-worry-I'll-get-it-sit-tight!"  
  
Zzzzzip!  
  
Ring Ring! Ring Ri-  
  
"Hello, Pietro speaking."  
  
"Oh. Hey, is Lance there? 'cause, like, I haven't spoken to him for yeeeeeears, you know?"  
  
Growl. Twitch.  
  
"Lance-is-unable-to-come-to-the-phone-right-now."  
  
Pause.  
  
"Er.. What? Why?"  
  
"Ah.. Sleeping. You'd better not ring again in case you wake him up."  
  
"Sleeping? At, like, one-thirty in the afternoon?"  
  
"Ooops, call-waiting, gotta-go-Kitty-bye!"  
  
Beep, beep, slam.  
  
A voice drifted down from the top of the stairs, belonging to a rather puzzled looking Lance.  
  
"Who was that?"  
  
Pietro shrugged sullenly. Damn that persistent Pryde. She was going to figure out sooner or later that he was just making excuses, and then what? "Some guy selling... stuff. Crappy stuff."  
  
Lance raised an eyebrow. "I thought it might be Kit-"  
  
He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but he thought he saw a scowl flash across Pietro's face. In an instant, the boy had grabbed his arm and raced them up the stairs, throwing Lance unceremoniously down on to his bed. Then, Lance found lips upon his own- lips that he was beginning to learn. It was one of Pietro's crushing kisses, the ones which screamed 'You Are Mine' with the hard, tingling lips and the power to steal breath.  
  
Oh, he could be such a bastard sometimes. Seeing that he had made his point, Pietro leant back against his pillow and allowed himself a slightly cruel laugh at Lance's bemused face.  
  
"What the hell are you-?" Lance began but was promptly pulled back into the position he and Pietro had been in before the offending phone call. It was, as anybody more sentimental might have called it, snuggling. Both Pietro and Lance had problems with this word. Kissing was fine, but cuddling, however nice it felt, always left them a little ashamed. It was somehow more intimate, more of a reminder that this was Deeper Than Physical Attraction.  
  
Lance sat between Pietro's legs, his head resting against the boy's left shoulder. He was using Pietro's knees as an armrest and Pietro was using Lance's legs to prop up the crossword they had found in an old magazine that usually supported the wobbly table leg.  
  
"Unsure of yourself," Pietro said through a yawn. "Eight letters. Uh, something-something-S-something-C-something-something-E."  
  
"Um.."  
  
Pietro exhaled, at a loss and watched with some amusement as his sigh ruffled Lance's hair. Even better was the way Lance's back stiffened at the strange feeling, though whether in arousal or shock Pietro couldn't tell.  
  
"Ah."  
  
The speed demon began trailing softer kisses down Lance's neck, nibbling at his ears and being thoroughly distracting.  
  
"Unsure?" Lance guessed as Pietro's lips found his shoulders.  
  
"Nuh-uh," Pietro replied against Lance's skin. "Eight."  
  
Lance drew in his breath shakily. "Unstable?"  
  
"Nope." Pietro lifted Lance's hair and laid a kiss on the hollow where head met neck. Lance shivered in reply, inviting him to do it again. He obliged.  
  
"In. in. Insecure?"  
  
Pietro tore himself away from Lance and grabbed the crossword.  
  
"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, you're right."  
  
*  
  
Kitty's calls kept coming. Pietro was finding it harder and harder to always be the one to answer the phone, just in case she rang. Of course, his virtue of super-speed was helpful. It meant that he could always beat Todd, or Lance, or Fred to the phone- that wasn't really the problem.  
  
The problems was excuses. He was running out of them.  
  
'Lance is in the shower.'  
  
'Lance has lost his voice.'  
  
'He's at a physio session.'  
  
'You know, I really don't know where Lance is today! Call back tomorrow.'  
  
Whatever next? 'Lance has been abducted by aliens from the planet Orteip'? Or perhaps the truth would be better? 'Lance can't come to the phone right now because I say so. As far as I'm concerned, you don't exist anymore. You're far too big a threat to our relationship, thank you very much.'  
  
The way Pietro saw it, the minute Lance spoke to Kitty again he'd be wiped completely out of the picture. Lance would fall in love with her all over again and he'd be left twice as infatuated with the rock tumbler as before. He couldn't let that happen. He felt that he'd resort to anything to keep Lance and what the boy didn't know couldn't hurt him.  
  
Right?  
  
So his actions were selfish. Wasn't that what he was? Selfish- apart from when he was with Lance and then that tender yet passionate side came out. Was it so bad to want to hang on to something beautiful as long as you could?  
  
A fleeting memory zapped into his head. When he was very little, his father had taken him to Central Park. He remembered the red balloon, on a string wound tightly around his fingers. At the end of the day, the balloon began to sag and he recalled letting go of the string and releasing it into the pinkish evening sky.  
  
"You have to let go eventually," he told himself in the mirror with what he hoped was a wise little nod. He couldn't convince himself. The face staring back at him smiled wanly and then disappeared as Pietro finally grew tired of his reflection.  
  
*  
  
"Now squeeze."  
  
Lance, with his fingers enclosed around Pietro's gripped the white hand and then released it. A slow, warm smile spread across his face and he did it again.  
  
"It's working," he grinned. He could feel power spreading back through his fingers, however slight it may have been. He could feel the warmth of Pietro's fingers and the softness of his hand, the alien blood throbbing under his fingertips.  
  
"I told you," Pietro whispered. "I told you it would, didn't I?"  
  
Taken by the intimacy of the moment and the hope it brought to him, Lance kissed Pietro deeply. The boy moaned into his mouth and brought one hand up to stroke Lance's hair, he knew he loved that. Lance continued to squeeze and release Pietro's hand, a new way of communicating his affection. When the kiss ended, Pietro's arms encircled Lance's neck and he brought their faces close together, examining the brown eyes just inches from his own.  
  
"Don't let go yet," he whispered, and it was only then that Lance realised he was still holding Pietro's hand.  
  
"I won't."  
  
What Lance didn't, and couldn't possibly know was that Pietro's instructions were aimed at himself. 


	9. Work and Play

Love in abundance to all you reviewers. Ah, by the way, what's abundance?.... A disco in a bakery! Heh. Heh. Heh.  
  
Ahem.  
  
*  
  
"When you're dead, yo, you don't know do ya?"  
  
Lance rolled his eyes and took great delight in flicking Todd's forehead. He now had almost full control of his hands and wrists; his arms were unfortunately still dead and hung useless at his sides.  
  
"I'm not in the mood for your philo.. phisophol. philosophising, froggy."  
  
"But ain't that weird? You're dead but.. like.. you don't know. Freaky. To think, Lance that we're in control of every little thing we do- look, I'm hopping to the corner of the room and I damn well know it- but AHA! BAM! Who's gonn' tell me when I'm dead, yo?"  
  
"Nobody because you won't be alive to hear it?"  
  
"Precisely!"  
  
"Todd, what's the point of this?"  
  
Todd leaned his chin on two gnarled, sallow hands and gave an evil grin. "Pietro asked me to keep you busy."  
  
Lance sighed. "Where's Fred?" He liked Fred. Fred was quiet. Fred was too stupid to go into intricate, nonsensical theories like Todd. And where was Pietro? What was he doing? He missed Pietro- wanted to explore his body now the power of touch was coming back to him.  
  
"Fred's fixin' the pipes. Wanna go piss him off?"  
  
Lance nodded half-heartedly. Anything to shut him up. He followed Todd down the stairs, wobbling a little less than usual. It was easier now that he could cling on to the stair-rail. The sound of Fred's scatological tirade told him that he was close to the kitchen; however, something a little closer caught his eye. Something white, and black and scribbling furiously at little less than a hundred miles per hour.  
  
"Pietro?"  
  
The boy in question ignored the source of the voice and picked up the piece of paper he had been writing on to read aloud with uncharacteristic clarity.  
  
"Je partage une maison avec mes trois amis Fred, Todd et Pietro. Notre maison est un trou de merde."  
  
Lance raised an eyebrow and joined Pietro at the table.  
  
"You take French?"  
  
"Nope," Pietro shook his head loftily. "But you do."  
  
Brown eyes narrowed in bewilderment. "What?"  
  
It was only then that Lance noticed the books scattered around the table. He could see pages of equations that he had neither written or solved, but were marked with the name Lance Alvers in the margin. An essay on Homer's The Iliad titled 'Patroklos and Achilleus share a bond deeper than friendship. Discuss' lay under Pietro's left elbow, also branded with a scrawled, red Lance Alvers. Somewhere under Pietro's right elbow there was a large sketch of a dead flower in a glass of water which also displayed his name.  
  
"Pietro." Lance grinned inwardly as the boy raised one eyebrow and slowly followed it upwards with his eyes. "Have you been doing my homework?"  
  
A notable blush rose on Pietro's cheeks, contrasting wildly with the almost translucent skin. He hated Lance for making him blush, making him into The Amazing Human Tomato.  
  
Todd and Fred had been bringing the boys their homework every day. Neither of them being very academic, it was either thrown away or used to fuel the fire in desperate times. However, that day Pietro had grown tired of his niggling insecurities and decided to bury them in a pile of work. His own had been too obvious a choice, so, being the spontaneous boy that he was, he had picked up Lance's book and worked through piece after piece of homework.  
  
"Yep," Pietro replied shortly and began to explain the function of the amygdala in no less than fifty words.  
  
"Man," Lance exclaimed, picking up Pietro's sketch and staring at it. No words could describe it. It was just so..  
  
"You can't draw for shit," he added bluntly. It was true. Pietro was too impatient to sit and admire objects and the picture was little more than scribbles. Lance wasn't even sure if it was a dead flower in a glass of water the speed demon had drawn, if one could call it that.  
  
"It's called symbolism, Alvers," Pietro sighed. If he'd worn glasses, he would have staring over the top of them primly. "The flower is dead, but it is still in water. What does that mean? Can it be revived or is it.." he faltered for a second before finding his tongue again. "Is it just pointless keeping a dead flower in water if it can't live again?"  
  
Lance, of course, couldn't understand Pietro's cryptic speech. He didn't know that the picture was an outright expression of Pietro's fears. All he knew was that he didn't like all this academic talk- he didn't like it all.  
  
"Don't go all clever on me," he muttered and snatched the pen out of Pietro's hand. He vacated his seat and stood in front of the speed demon so that he could capture Pietro's face in his hands for the first time. A frown flitted across the soft features, turning the small mouth downwards and drawing the eyebrows together. It left as soon as it came, and Pietro relaxed into Lance's touch, bringing their lips together with a swift gentleness.  
  
"Your skin feels like velvet," Lance mused as he stroked Pietro's cheek. The boy winced, this time in good nature.  
  
"You are such a girl, Alvers!"  
  
"But it does," Lance smiled and brushed Pietro's eyelashes with a fingertip. "And your eyes sparkle like sapphires and your lips are sweet like nectar, your hair gleams like the fresh, fallen snow!"  
  
They both snickered and Pietro bit Lance's earlobe playfully. He could handle it when they weren't serious- that was a good sign, it meant no commitment, no worries. It didn't have to get any deeper, not yet.  
  
"Kitty would have bought that crap," Lance remarked as he worked his hands around Pietro's neck, trying to find a pulse. Pietro's frown returned, far more pronounced than before. Kitty. Shitty, pretty, itty-bitty Kitty Pryde! Would he ever be able to eliminate her from Lance's memory? Stupid X-Bitch with her cerulean eyes and sable hair and skin like moonlit dew on the first fallen leaves of spring!  
  
"Well, Pietro doesn't," the speed demon muttered as Lance's hands began to fumble with his belt. He wanted to pull away. He knew it would be better to pull away, but that wasn't enough to muffle the screaming voice of teenage lust at the back of his mind. Oh, but that voice was evil! Once, in a moment of extreme boredom, he had tried to personalise it. Pietro's lust, as he saw it, was an overweight woman of fifty with dyed red hair piled up on her head, too much make-up and too little clothes. She liked to accentuate her words with a flick of her smouldering cigarette, spoken in a Chicago drawl.  
  
He could not help the shuddering gasp that escaped him as Lance pulled himself down to sit astride him. Lance's slender hips ground a desperate crotch into his own, each longing for release from the restricting material of their clothes. It was an impassioned, rash gesture that was returned with the same hunger and desire. Pietro's nose was squashed as Lance's lips crashed into his own, teeth clicking together clumsily as tongues fought desperately for dominance of the situation.  
  
"Forget her," Pietro growled as he rubbed his crotch hard against Lance. "Forget. forget Kitty, forget her," became his chant in between great gasps of air. Lance hummed in reply against Pietro's neck, sucking fervently and leaving his mark. "Fuck you.. Alvers.. trying to be serious here.. Me. or her.. Make. make your decision."  
  
"You, dammit," Lance groaned as Pietro scratched his nails down his back. "How many more times do I have to tell you? You. oh shit," he let out a low moan as Pietro's hands found their way into his jeans. "So damn insecure, I dunno what I have to do to tell you that I-"  
  
Rrrrrrring-Ring!  
  
"Don't know. I dunno, Lance." A long, white fingered hand made its way down from Lance's navel.  
  
Ring-Ring!  
  
Lance grabbed Pietro's hand. "Wait, the phone."  
  
Pietro struggled to regain control of the situation. "Fuck the phone."  
  
Just like he had once before, Pietro's fist closed around Lance forcefully. That would hold him down, surely. Forget the phone, he willed Lance, stay with me.  
  
It didn't work. In seconds, Lance had wrenched himself out of Pietro's grip and pulled his underwear and jeans up with a mere hint of a struggle. Then, he made his way to the phone in the hall, hearing Pietro's protests at his back the whole way.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Lance?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Ohmigosh, LANCE! I have, like, totally not heard from you in ages! You must've been pretty busy."  
  
"Hey, Kitty."  
  
"So, like, how are you?"  
  
"Pretty good. Gotta-"  
  
"Beast said that, like, your paralysis was disappearing."  
  
"Yep. Er, Kitty, I hafta-"  
  
"So, like, the minute it goes away I think we should go on a date. Hey, our first date! Isn't that just so CUTE? Hahahahaaaaaaaaha!"  
  
Ugh. Yuck. No, Lance thought, not cute at all. He had to dump Kitty before anything really began. Yes, that's what that 'first date' would be for. First and last.  
  
"Um, sure. I'll call you when. Bye, Kitty."  
  
"Bye, Lance, I like really-"  
  
Lance set the receiver down firmly and returned to the living room. Pietro raised an eyebrow at him. In all fairness, it hadn't been a long enough call to be Kitty. He knew from past experience that when Kitty called Lance, the calls were never less than an hour in length. It was probably just Mystique, calling to give them a mission.  
  
"Who was that?" he asked.  
  
Lance opened his mouth to speak and then changed his mind as the words were forming on his tongue. He didn't know why he did it, why he felt that he couldn't tell the truth but he found deceptive words leaving his mouth which had unwittingly echoed Pietro's lies and excuses.  
  
"Some guy selling stuff. Crappy stuff."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Pietro ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully. Lance stared at the carpet, feeling a little guilty for lying and more than a small intuition that agreeing to meet Kitty had been the wrong thing to do.  
  
Why couldn't anything ever be straightforward anymore? He half wished for the stupid, caveman Lance of old to chuck him over his shoulder and lead him into his cave where all sense would gradually be clubbed out of him.  
  
How could an empty mind be so desirable?  
  
*  
  
"Je partage une maison avec mes trois amis Fred, Todd et Pietro. Notre maison est un trou de merde."  
  
I share a house with my three friends, Fred, Todd and Pietro. Our house is a shit-hole. 


	10. Splinters

Thanks for the reviews, love you all lots.  
  
Yes, Kickassangel- Todd's philosophising about death was brought on by your fic! I am so honoured that you acknowledged that I acknowledged your work, lol! *psychic hug.. Ooooo.. Jean-like..  
  
*  
  
I just found out I won my college poetry competition.. Very, very chuffed. The theme was `BRITAIN' so I naturally took the mick out of us Brits. If you want to read it, it's here, if you don't then skip to the story, my friend!  
  
Awfully British  
  
Last train from London Waterloo,  
  
Third carriage from the end and  
  
Everything is very quiet.  
  
The slaves to style with this season's shoes,  
  
The haggard commuters torn between work and home and  
  
The less easily labelled are being terribly polite,  
  
Considering.  
  
She's sitting on his lap,  
  
Skirt hitched high  
  
And exposing   
  
A shocking amount  
  
Of thigh.  
  
His wandering hands  
  
Shift to unspeakable places  
  
At her   
  
Whispered commands.  
  
Everybody is being terribly good about it,  
  
Eyes fixed on the banners overhead or their shoes.  
  
No eyebrows are raised,  
  
Just furrowed in an attempt to look  
  
Completely indifferent to the unfortunate spectacle.  
  
Nobody makes a sound-  
  
After all,  
  
It would be horribly impolite to disturb them halfway  
  
Through their business.  
  
Thankfully, it ends in two stops' time.  
  
She's looking flushed,  
  
He wears a megawatt grin.  
  
Out come the cigarettes and  
  
He holds one to his lips, lighter poised,  
  
Only to be met by mass disapproval.  
  
Arms are folded, eyes are rolled and  
  
Tongues are clicked in a stern tut-tut.  
  
"What manners!" cried a suited one as he disparaged.  
  
"Don't you know this is a non-smoking carriage?"  
  
*  
  
Like a light switching on and off in his brain, subconscious images ran through Pietro's head. A little bouquet of daffodils, tied with red wool. Green Wellington boots. A lobster. A gentleman's tweed hat perched on top of a smart, black umbrella. Next-door's kitten stuck up a tree.  
  
"PietroPietroPietro!!"  
  
Pietro's slideshow of memories skidded to a halt as he felt a foreign elbow jabbing into his ribs, very rudely disturbing him from sleep. He awoke instantly, knowing the voice well.  
  
"Lance?"  
  
"PietroLookMyArmsMyArms! My ARMS!" Lance added, waving them around for emphasis. Pietro rolled his eyes.  
  
"Yes, Lance, you have two of them, big whoop. What kind of a stupid reason is that to-"  
  
Wait a minute. Lance was moving his arms. Lance had life in his arms! The paralysis was gone. They'd beaten it together!  
  
"You- your ARMS! Your arms!"  
  
"My arms!" Lance cried and stood on Pietro's bed, the speed demon following. They grinned helplessly at each other before Lance threw his now vivacious arms around Pietro in a crushing hug.   
  
Pietro couldn't help getting a little soppy in Lance's embrace. It offered everything he didn't have; power, security and warmth. He liked the feeling of being held and holding on at the same time, though admittedly Lance was slowly squeezing the air out of him in his excitement.   
  
"Your arms!" Pietro repeated, lost for words, in a girlish squeal. They began to jump up and down on the bed in their shared happiness, still holding on to each other as they bounced.   
  
This, of course, was a bizarre spectacle to behold. The noise had woken Fred, who was now standing at the doorway and observing what looked like a very large, squealing Mexican Jumping Bean.  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
"Oh," bounce! "Hey Fred," bounce! "We were just," bounce, bounce! "Celebrating the return of my arms!"  
  
"You ain't all paralysed anymore, yo?"  
  
Todd had now appeared too, tousle-haired and sleepy eyed. He was wearing a slightly confused smile to match Fred's mask of utter terror.  
  
"Nope," bounce! "He's all better!" Bounce, bounce, bounce! "We gotta have a party!" bounce! "Let's get some beer! Ooh and balloons!" Boing!  
  
Fred shook his head and lumbered back to bed. Todd leaned on the doorway, a more sure smile spreading across his face.  
  
"Man, you two are such girls. I've seen Kitty and co do exactly the same thing over a pair of shoes, yo."   
  
"Don't care!" Lance cried as he began to pull Pietro across the bed in a clumsy waltz. Pietro hummed tunelessly along in between bouts of laughter. Hysterical tears were beginning to leak out of the corners of their eyes as they cackled insanely. Todd rolled his eyes as their waltz turned into a horrific rendition of a tango, Lance dipping Pietro backwards further and further and further until..  
  
Crash-Squeak-Smack-Creak-Thud!  
  
"Oh fuck."  
  
*  
  
"Is it- broken?"  
  
  
  
A pause.  
  
"Shit. Hell, yeah."  
  
"Are you sure? How about if I-"  
  
"LANCE! It's broken, okay?"  
  
"Let me just try something-"  
  
Crack.  
  
"Yep. That's definitely broken."  
  
The two boys stood back, looking at the splintered ruins of Pietro's bed that lay before them. Lance was frowning at the broken bed with his head tilted to one side in what appeared to be deep thought. Pietro held a stray pillow to him with all the tenderness of a mother for her first-born, lamenting his trusty old bed. They had been through a lot together; those pillows had seen infinite tears, it had been his sanctuary during three weeks of glandular fever and the setting for many an erotic dream and a stained sheet.  
  
"We could try to fix it," Lance suggested, doubting his words before they had even left his mouth. Even with his skills in DIY, resurrecting the bed seemed less than likely, more like impossible. Pietro sighed. He tossed the pillow aside in defeat and shook his head, letting a wicked grin spread across his face.  
  
"Guess I'll just have to sleep in your bed, Lance."  
  
"Guess you will," Lance mocked a helpless sigh at the `unfortunate circumstances'.   
  
Then his body seemed to tense and his stature changed noticeably by a few less centimetres. "Pietro, I ain't going all mushy on you.. But can I.. Uh.. Hug you again?" He had wanted to hold something for so long, make use of those awoken appendages. He wanted to use his fingers, his hands, his wrists, his arms- if not to prove that they still worked then to celebrate their none-too-swift return.  
  
"Yeah," Pietro whispered, suddenly feeling just as uncomfortable. "'spose."  
  
"'kay."   
  
After a few seconds of awkward eye contact, Lance stepped up to Pietro so that their toes were touching. He searched Pietro's face for discomfort and was half-relieved, half-worried to find utter blankness. Moving in so that their torsos were pressed against each other, Lance wrapped one arm around Pietro's shoulders and the other around his waist. For a terrible moment, he thought that the speed demon wasn't going to respond and that he had made an awful mistake. Pietro seemed to almost flinch at the touch, unable to relax at first.  
  
Then, impulsively even for himself, Pietro grabbed Lance's waist and encircled it with his long arms. He found that his head fit perfectly under Lance's chin and that at a certain angle he could look up into his eyes. It was all so terribly sweet and sentimental that the boys felt almost ashamed of what they were doing. It was one thing to kiss and grope and have wild, passionate sex but to be cuddling and to be. enjoying it just seemed to confirm it. This was the big one, the one they tried to warn you about and you never listened. This was it, the world's greatest roller coaster: Love.  
  
"I like this," Pietro murmured involuntarily against Lance's collar. "Do you love me?"  
  
Damn it. Why the hell- why the bloody hell had he said that? Oh god. He hid his face in Lance's shirt, just waiting for the laughter. Lance didn't love him! What was he thinking in asking something so stupid and needy? Ugh. He really did hate himself sometimes; well, strictly speaking, he spent a lot more time loving and worshipping the god that was Pietro Maximoff than regretting his existence, but right at that moment he was prepared to run screaming "Abandon ship!" from himself.  
  
Surprisingly, the laughter never came. Lance frowned, staring down into the mass of white hair. Did he love him? It was really too early to tell. Their relationship had come as something of a surprise- a good one, yes, but he couldn't help feeling a little shocked by it all. Perhaps one day he would love Pietro, but not yet.  
  
"I could damn well learn to love you," he said. Without warning, he scooped Pietro into his arms, carrying him like a bride across the threshold. He had always been curious as to how light Pietro was, now he found that the speed demon was no feather. He was certainly light for a boy, that was for sure, but he didn't feel as frail and delicate as Lance had expected.   
  
"What are you doing?" Pietro asked, glimpsing over Lance's shoulder as he was taken into the hallway and then placed down a little less than gently. In fact, to put it lightly, he found himself flung down on to the carpet arse-first with limbs sprawling in all directions. He gave Lance a questioning, if not slightly annoyed look.  
  
"Not used to my arms yet, I guess," Lance shrugged. It had been an involuntary spasm that had sent Pietro crashing to the ground.  
  
Pietro stood up, brushing himself off. "Why the hell did you feel the need to carry me in the first place?"  
  
Lance jerked his head in the direction of the broken bed. "Didn't want you to get splinters," he mumbled, a blush quickly spreading across the bridge of his nose.  
  
Pietro laughed mockingly at Lance as he melted inside. He hated his tough exterior but it had always kept him safe. It was incredible that Lance cared so much about him and could learn to love him, but there was no way he was going to show it. The old Maximoff fa‡ade of `pretend-you-don't-care' was put back on and not another word was said as Pietro went down the stairs. Not that it mattered to Lance; he could read Pietro like a book, and that was saying something for a boy who had failed English Lit before he'd even began the course.  
  
As he stood there alone, still marvelling at the return of his arms, Lance remembered the call he'd had from Kitty. Why had he lied to Pietro about it? After all, wouldn't he be thrilled that the almighty Avalanche was meeting up with her to "dump her sorry ass"? Or was it that he didn't trust himself with Kitty? Maybe that was why he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of seeing her, being in the same room as her.  
  
No, that was bullshit. It had to be. He had Pietro now; he forced himself to remember how amazing it felt to have him in his arms and kiss him silly. Sure, he could learn to love that boy, after eliminating Obstacle Number One- Pryde herself. He'd ring her now and see her tonight, they'd meet up, and he'd tell her straight away. They'd never work together, he was very sorry and she was a great girl who could do much better than him, blah blah.  
  
Ignoring the slight rumbling of anxiety that ran through his intestines, Lance reached for the phone. 


	11. Strawberries

Thanks for the lovely reviews!   
  
Ah yes- Jade Starr, er, who's Jessica Simpson? I'm getting the idea you dislike her somehow.. Any quoting of her was purely unintentional- I don't normally quote as it is.   
  
Okay, this is an angsty chapter. Why? Because every Pietrance/Lietro needs its angst. And Kitty is the perfect ingredient..   
  
Apologies in advance for overuse of the F-Word.. It's Lance's fault for having a crappy vocabulary. And it also shows that he is emotionally inadequate *nods in attempt to look wise*  
  
My friend Jack likes to use Cockney Rhyming Slang. So in tribute to him:  
  
Feast yer mince pies on this, me old china!  
  
*  
  
Lance waited on the corner, watching his breath come out in a mist in the chilly Autumn air. It had amused him for a while, during which he'd pretended to be a delinquent chain-smoker, but after a while he'd grown bored and raised the rather important question of Where Was Kitty Pryde? She was ten minutes late, no, eleven now. That one minute made a huge difference. To be ten minutes late was acceptable on Lance's terms, anything more and you were wasting his precious time.  
  
"… Don't be insulted, because it's really not your fault. It's mine. You deserve better, Kitty, I'm nothing but a hood.. You need someone that your parents would approve of, some guy with good grades and a proper haircut and let's face it, someone your own age. You're a great girl, Kitty, but I'm- well, I'm a piece of shit really. Yeah. And that's putting it lightly. I'd be dog crap on the sole of your best shoes.. I'd stain your parents carpet something awful."  
  
He was rather proud of that metaphor. It was a literary device, yet it wasn't flouncy or romantic. It was the kind of thing that would revolt Kitty and convince her that he really was the lowest of the low. Perhaps he'd throw in a few swear words here and there too, maybe "You're a fucking great girl, Kitty," or "I'm a fucking, crappy, shitty piece of shit." He was now having seconds thoughts about the additional twitch, but if the moment took him he'd milk it for all it was worth.  
  
"OHMYGOD! LA-A-A-A-A-A-A-ANCE!!!"  
  
And there she was. Lance fleetingly wondered if Kitty had super-speed, for in a total of less than two seconds she was attached around his neck and babbling at him at a hundred miles per hour.  
  
"…..andScottgoes"Wellyoucanjustgetthebusthen"andI'mlike"Whatever"andhe'sliketotallyirritatedsoanywayIgetonthebusandit'sliketotallythewrongoneandI'mheadedtotheothersideoftownsoI'mlike"STOP!"andIrunoffhtebusandthenIlikeRANallthewayheresosorryI'mlateLanceheyisn'tthiscool?"  
  
"Um. Yeah?" Lance offered, taking advantage of his properly working arms by disentangling her arms from his neck. "Can we talk?"  
  
"Talk?" Kitty ran a hand through her hair, and Lance noticed how flushed she was looking. She stumbled a little as he released her and grabbed a lamp-post for support. "Yeah, 'kay. I like talking."  
  
Lance raised an eyebrow. There was being ditzy and there was being totally out of your head. Three guesses at which Kitty was that fine night.  
  
"Let's go to the park then," he said, beginning to walk away. Kitty get go of the lamp-post, swayed a little then giggled insanely.   
  
"Come on," he beckoned. She tottered up to him in what coincidentally were her best shoes and they began to walk together.  
  
"This talking, is it gonna take long? Cos I, like, have other plans for us, you know?"  
  
Lance stiffened slightly as her arm found its way around his waist and stayed there. "No," he said firmly. "This won't take long."  
  
"Hey, look at the moon," Kitty whispered in awe as they entered the park. "It's so pretty. I reckon it's there just for us."  
  
Lance had to bite down hard on his tongue to stop himself from vomiting. This girl was sweet, but artificially so. He could take a little sugar, but it was a well known fact that aspartame could rot your brain. That was what she was, aspartame.  
  
Kitty led him to a bench and they sat. He tapped his fingers on his knees anxiously, wanting to break the silence but conveniently having forgotten his rehearsed speech. She lay her head on his shoulder and he could smell strawberries again. He remembered swearing that he would never so much as touch a strawberry again after that night.  
  
"You're drunk, aren't you?" he said quietly, twitching his shoulder a little in the hope that she would move. She didn't.  
  
"A little." Kitty nodded her head against Lance's shoulder. Her hair tickled his collarbone. "I didn't want to be shy with you."  
  
Looking back on the event, Lance didn't understand why he hadn't heard the warning bells then. It seemed so obvious afterwards. He should've dumped her there and then- he should have but didn't, and he never knew why.  
  
"I've missed you so much," she murmured, now stroking his cheek. The stubbly feel repulsed and aroused her at the same time. "Sometimes I wished it was me looking after you, you know?"  
  
"Kitty, I-" but what he was, Lance never got the chance to say. Her lips silenced him, strawberry lips. It was a clumsy kiss, spurred only by alcohol and hormones. He should've stopped it there and then- he should have, but didn't.  
  
"Kitty, I don't think this is-"  
  
Another kiss, and she was dragging him towards a tree. He could feel his knees shaking violently, a sign of weakness, or was it longing?   
  
"There's nobody around," she whispered whilst her hands fumbled with his fly. He tried to push her off, but found that his body was rebelling. Poor body, it knew nothing of morals. It wanted Sex, not just sex but Sex with a capital S! Oh yes, it wanted breasts and buttocks and bouncing, all the things that Lance was trying to fight.  
  
"But you're drunk," he groaned as she fished around in her purse for something. He hoped to every god he could think of that it wasn't what he thought it was. It was, of course, a condom. Congratulations, Lance thought grimly to himself, you're going to get laid.   
  
Hip-hip fucking hooray.  
  
"Not that drunk," she whispered urgently, groping him. He moaned. He really didn't want to be doing this, and yet his stupid body wouldn't let him stop. "I've wanted this for so long and I know you have too."  
  
It occurred to Lance that this was all hideously out of character for the pink cardigan-wearing, apple pie Valley girl that was Kitty. She was behaving the way she used to in his fantasies, and that absolutely terrified him. Maybe Jean had observed a few and told her all about them? Oh god, what if Jean knew about his fetish for elbows, or worse, intruded upon his forest ranger fantasy in which Kitty was naked save for the hat and the elk she was sitting on?  
  
"Kitty, I can't do this," he moaned into her shoulder. Pietro. He couldn't. He really shouldn't. God, did her chest have to heave like that? Those breasts! One little grope wouldn't hurt. Or two. Oh yeah.. Better make that three. But Pietro! That was love and this was lust. What should he do? What could he do?  
  
Fuck fuck fuck, Lance silently panicked as she rolled the condom on. This didn't feel right. It wasn't romantic, it wasn't even sexy for god's sake! So why the hell couldn't he pull away? Was he really so weak?   
  
Bastard! Lance screamed at himself as he groped at her behind, pulling her upwards and pushing inside of her. It was too late to go back now, he just had to get it over with. It wouldn't take long, not if he thrust hard and fast; ignored the way her moans were turning into those of pain rather than pleasure. His let his hands stay put on her hips, refusing to let them roam any further. He didn't know where her hands were, which erogenous zone they were trying to awaken and he didn't care. This had to stop.  
  
This has to stop, this has to stop- this silent chant became the rhythm to which he took her. The experience was leaving him cold and he could not believe that he had once wanted this. It was just a clumsy, foolish fumble that he should never have gone ahead with. He knew he was hurting her now. Her pain worsened as he tried to bring himself closer to climax, driving in and out of her with such force that tears leaked shamefully down her cheeks.  
  
As soon as he felt the wetness on her cheeks, Lance pulled out of her. He was ashamed, she was ashamed. Without another word, she pulled down her skirt, buttoned her shirt and sped off into the bustle and traffic of the city.  
  
*  
  
After sitting alone in the park for two hours and considering what the best insult for him was, Lance decided to go home. He had been trying to avoid it for as long as humanly possible, dreading the moment of seeing that painfully white hair again. Would he be able to lie about it? There was something horribly interrogatory about Pietro's eyes; looking at him was like being caught under the infuriatingly bright desk-lamp of a TV detective.   
  
"Fuckwad," Lance growled to himself under his breath as he walked home. "Lousy, cheating fuckwad. Taking advantage of a drunk girl like that… You disgust me."  
  
Telling himself off when he had done something wrong was an old habit of Lance's. He had always thought it was a strange thing to do but just couldn't help himself. Perhaps, getting psychological, it was a result of an absent father. He didn't know. All he knew that was that he was indeed a fuckwad.  
  
He had been so intent on berating himself that he'd walked into his own front door, whacked his elbow and exploded into another noisy tirade of swearing. Wishing that he hadn't regained feeling in his arms after all, he unlocked the door carefully and crept up the stairs with a surprising daintiness.   
  
Oh yes, Lance Alvers was a regular old twinkle toes.  
  
He had it all worked out. He'd shuffle silently into his room and nobody would be any the wiser. There, he'd think of an excuse for where he'd been. As usual, thinking would be a slow, hard process but the night was still young and he had plenty of time to formulate something. Fool-proof.  
  
Of course, Lance Alvers was not just any old fool. As soon as he'd shut his bedroom door, he realised he'd made a terrible mistake. He remembered bouncing and splinters and broken beds, which all added up to one thing. Pietro was in his room, Pietro was in his bed and oh dear god, he was in big trouble.  
  
The light was on and Pietro was standing in the middle of the room with a glare that would have melted Satan.   
  
"Good morning, Lance," he said calmly, forcing himself to speak slowly and coherently.  
  
"Morning?" Lance wrinkled his nose in confusion and stared at his watch. Ah. 12:01- Pietro didn't miss a beat.   
  
"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Pietro dug his heels into the ground in an attempt to stay still. He would not start pacing. He would not show how worried or agitated he had been and he most certainly would not ask Lance where he had been. He was afraid of the answer.  
  
Lance's eyes darted to one side and then to the other, narrowing slightly. He scratched the back of his neck, pacing a few steps and then stopping again to pick up various objects and put them in different places.  
  
"I was at the park!" he blurted out, mid-pace. Pietro folded his arms and put on his best impression of indifference. People went to the park all the time, what was it to him?  
  
After clearing his throat a few times, Lance sat down on the edge of his bed. Its softness was a shocking contrast to the hard, mildewed wood of the park bench. He found himself caught in the blue, inquisitive stare for a moment before Pietro looked away and turned to face the window. Much as he wanted to, Lance found that he could not leave the subject hanging in the air. He had to get it over with- it was better to do it now, what point was there in cushioning the blow?   
  
Hang on, Lance thought as he opened his mouth to speak. He was acting like he and Pietro were boyfriends or something. They weren't. There was no commitment yet as such, so why the hell shouldn't he see other girls? Pietro didn't own him and therefore there was no betrayal.  
  
If only he could believe it.  
  
"I went to see Kitty," he continued, shocked at how unsteady his voice was. He'd always thought it was strong, but now it wavered out of control at the end of every syllable. "I wanted to dump her because of us."  
  
Pietro looked up at Lance through his hair. Pryde. That stupid X-Bitch! Why couldn't Lance just leave her alone? But then… He'd wanted to dump her. That had to be a good sign, didn't it?  
  
"She was a little drunk," Lance murmured, putting his hands over his face. He didn't want to see Pietro's reaction, and he didn't want Pietro to see his own.   
  
"Little Miss Perfect pissed?" Pietro snickered, though it fell flat. "What did it take, one sip of….. Of…" His own voice faltered as he sensed the seriousness of the situation. He crossed over to the bed and stood in front of Lance, trying to prise his hands away from his face. "Lance, what did you do? What the hell did you do?"  
  
Horrified, Lance felt his bottom lip quiver. 'No, you idiot! Don't cry!' he shouted at himself. "I… I tried to stop her," he said lamely, Pietro's penetrating gaze unrelenting.  
  
"You.. Tried to stop her. From what?" Pietro asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. Lance opened his mouth, but he couldn't form the words. He was ashamed of what he had done and scared that he'd ruined things forever with Pietro.  
  
"I got a splinter," Pietro said blankly, making Lance look up in shock at the randomness of the comment. "Here, in my finger. A splinter."  
  
After a long pause, Pietro stared right into Lance's eyes, melting the soft brown.   
  
"You fucked her, didn't you?"  
  
It was all Lance could do to nod his head in agreement before hanging his head in total and utter shame. 


	12. Trashed

Thanks for reviewing as usual, keep it up!  
  
Kickassangel and me- you've hit the nail on the head. Lance is an EEJIT! Would it be terribly out of character for Pietro to call Lance an eejit..? It may have to make an appearance in future chapters..  
  
Oh yes.. and Kissassangel, of course I'll marry you! Lol. Hahahaa, I'll marry you all!  
  
Ahem. On with the story. I appear to have made Pietro a little, er.. emotionally unstable. This may seem out of character to you or it may not- personally, I think Pietro's pretty insane.  
  
Approach this chapter with caution- über angst lies ahead!  
  
*  
  
For a while, Lance thought Pietro had slipped into a coma. He had never seen the blue eyes dull and lifeless as they were then and he had certainly never known Pietro to sit still for more than five seconds. The sound of Pietro's nose whistling as he breathed was enough reassurance that he had not died of shock, but the silence was a bad omen.  
  
Finally, Pietro spoke. Small as the room was, his voice seemed to reverberate on every syllable. The sound of him speaking, breaking the tense heaviness of the silence between them startled Lance. Pietro was unpredictable and impulsive, and his words came out on the verge of a repressed sob.  
  
"I knew, I knew it was going to be like this. I knew it! Why am I so stupid, why did I go ahead with this, I'm so stupid! What do I keep doing to people to make them leave me? Does nobody- doesn't anybody- What the fuck am I doing wrong?"  
  
He paused to stare at Lance, breathing hard. He'd been stupid to think he could keep him. Lance had wanted her all along, now he'd got what he wanted and he was going to leave.  
  
What had he been- a small diversion? Something to amuse Master Alvers whilst he was physically impaired? That hand-job; it was filthy and dirty and had formed a silly, false relationship that he had been stupid enough to believe in.  
  
Not anymore.  
  
As quick as he could, Pietro raised a hand and brought it down hard across Lance's face. The sound of the slap bounced off the wall as Lance stared wide-eyed in shock, cradling his stinging face.  
  
"Jesus, that hurt," Lance moaned.  
  
"I've only just begun," Pietro hissed, sounding a far-cry from his anguished babble a moment ago. "How dare you, Lance? What makes you think you can play me? Oh, I know what you're like. You get off on power. It's all about control, isn't it? You want her but you've got me too, for when it all goes wrong. You can come to me for an easy fuck and you know you'll get it because you've won me. I want you and I need you and that's why you'll use me again and again and I'll just keep coming back. Because I," he paused for breath. His voice had been gradually rising again and he struggled to lower it to a less passionate level. "Because I lost control a long time ago."  
  
Pietro's words made Lance look up from the floor. They scared him. Pietro was blowing things out of proportion, twisting them. He was beginning to worry about Pietro- the inconsistency of his reactions was far from normal.  
  
"I'm sorry," Lance said, interrupting Pietro mid-rant. The speed demon stared at him in disbelief, his hands balling into fists under the ridiculously long sleeves of his jumper.  
  
"Why did you make me believe?" Pietro lamented, suddenly sounding very small. "Why did you make me believe that there was a chance, that there was an us? You've hurt me. Really. I really cared about you, I can't believe you'd cheat on me."  
  
"Cheat on you?" Lance asked, raising his voice. He was beginning to get angry now. Pietro was talking crap and sounded like something out of a badly written soap opera. "How the hell could I cheat on you when we weren't even going out? There was no commitment, okay, none!"  
  
The moment the words left his mouth, Lance knew he'd said something very, very wrong. Pietro's mouth fell open and his whole body started to shake violently with rage. His pupils dilated until the blue was barely visible and his lips disappeared as surprisingly sharp teeth were bared.  
  
Then, the Pietro as Lance knew him disappeared, giving way to a white blur and a strong gust of wind. Ancient music posters flew off the walls, clothes and shoes whirled around in a growing tornado. The curtains were ripped to pieces and the wallpaper was torn off in ragged strips, exposing the hideous grey cement of the walls.  
  
"Pietro, stop!" Lance pleaded. He stood in the middle of the action, clinging on to his bedpost to stop the force of Pietro's speed knocking him over.  
  
The doors of the wardrobe banged open and shut as the gust of wind grew stronger. A nasty crack told Lance that the hinges had been broken.  
  
"You'll hurt yourself," he warned as Pietro pulled out drawers, taking the contents with him. Lance's old stereo flew off the shelf and dropped to the floor, splitting in two. A mirror shattered and the photographs blu-tacked above Lance's bed were torn to angry sheds.  
  
"Pietro, please," begged Lance. He had to stop this. Pietro was going insane and showed no sign of stopping.  
  
"What the hell is goin' on?"  
  
Lance turned to see Fred at the door, looking extremely annoyed.  
  
There was a discordant, metallic hum that followed the sharp crack of smashed plastic, and Lance saw the ruins of his guitar at his feet. Despair and anger ran through him. He'd loved that guitar. Pietro didn't know what it meant to him.  
  
"That's it!" Lance growled and his eyes rolled back into his head, exposing the sinister whites. Fred saw the warning signs and grabbed Lance's wrists, holding them behind his back.  
  
"Can't let you do that, buddy," Fred said as Lance struggled against him. They watched Lance's clothes sail past, ripped to pieces. The shelves fell off the wall with a terrible smash.  
  
"Got to stop him," gasped Lance, stamping his foot and letting a small tremour run through the room. Pietro let out a strangled scream of rage and put his fist through the window.  
  
"What happened between you two, yo?" Todd had taken refuge behind Fred as the three of them were pelted with shoes.  
  
"PIETRO!" bellowed Fred. His voice echoed throughout the house and Lance sent out another tremour, this time more powerful.  
  
"C'm'on man, this is freaky," whined Todd as Pietro screamed again. "Someone's gotta calm him down."  
  
"This ain't doin' anyone any good!" Fred tried as the walls were kicked repeatedly and a small hole formed in the skirting board.  
  
Through the powerful whirlwind, Lance watched his room become a war zone. What the hell could be going through Pietro's head? Had he really hurt him that much? This had to stop. Not only was Pietro wrecking the room, but he was hurting himself and everyone else in the process.  
  
Lance took a deep breath and stepped into the eye of the tornado, groping around wildly for the speed demon.  
  
"Pietro, you have to stop this," he screamed, his words getting lost in the wind as he grabbed at the air. "Just stop. Stop."  
  
And finally, it did. Lance grabbed on to the back of Pietro's shirt and pulled them both down. He pinned the struggling form of Pietro to the ground as the wind gradually died down and the atmosphere returned to normal.  
  
"Shit, Lance," Todd whispered as they surveyed the damage. The room was merely a pile of unrecognisable rubble. Everything lay in ruins.  
  
Pietro babbled incoherently into the carpet, gasping for breath. His hands clawed at the carpet and Lance tightened his grip on his waist. He was getting a mouthful of wiry white hair as Pietro's head thrashed around.  
  
"Calm down," Lance urged. "It's alright now."  
  
"Y-yeah," Fred added hesitantly. "It's okay."  
  
Lance felt something warm and sticky on his hands and stared down at them, confused. Blood. One look at Pietro's clenched fist confirmed it.  
  
"You're hurt," whispered Lance, pulling Pietro against his chest into a seated position and examining the wound. He could hear Pietro's rapid breathing begin to settle and the babbling ceased.  
  
"I- smashed the window," muttered Pietro, staring down at his injured fist.  
  
"You did a bit more than that," said Lance softly as he tore off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around Pietro's injury. "Pietro, what have you done?"  
  
Pietro sniffled and covered his face with his hands. He was exhausted and broken. Heavy sobs racked his body and he arched away from Lance's comfort like a scorned cat.  
  
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed, his voice rising at the end of every syllable in an anguisged keen. "Just- leave- me- alone!" he choked, collapsing into convulsive sobs in the debris.  
  
Lance stared at the two boys helplessly and shook his head, leaving the room. They were now seriously doubting Pietro's state of mind. This was not like him, not like him at all. And now, with Pietro left sobbing in a heap on the floor of his trashed room, everything lay in ruins.  
  
Everything lay in ruins. 


	13. Medicine in Mutual Sadness

Reviewers, I love you! You special, special people! Hurrah!  
  
Glad to hear your opinions on the word 'eejit'. Look out for it, it might just pop up in a later chapter.  
  
I'm sorry if you wanted me to keep the angst up. I assure you, there will still be angsty moments. But I'm a romantic, and I'm in love so I couldn't let the boys suffer too much. You will see another side to Lance in this chapter- guess what? He's secretly as needy and insecure as Pietro..  
  
Sad chapter, this one.  
  
Enjoy!  
  
*  
  
It was the morning after the night before, and the boys were left under the cloud of an awkward silence. Fred twiddled his thumbs and Todd adjusted himself so he was sitting cross-legged in his chair. Lance let out a long sigh, watching his fringe blow up with his breath.  
  
"Someone's gotta see if he's okay," Todd finally said, referring to Pietro and causing Lance to look up at him with the wide eyes of the accused.  
  
"I'm not gonna," Fred said stubbornly. "He don't talk to me."  
  
"Well I don't wanna," whined Todd. "He freaks me out, yo. Lance, you do it."  
  
"I ain't good at the whole comfort thing," Lance protested feebly. "Anyway, he was trying to kill me last night."  
  
The truth was, he really didn't want to face Pietro after last night. He knew that all the pain would resurface, both Pietro's and his own. Seeing the almighty Maximoff crumpled on the floor and sobbing his soul dry had broken Lance, too. He was, after all, the cause of all Pietro's grief. There was no greater pain than betrayal, Lance knew that only too well because he felt he had betrayed himself. Just what had possessed him to take part in that drunken fumble with Kitty? He'd hated it and now had a nasty taste in his mouth that wouldn't fade; the sour stinging and burning of guilt and disgust.  
  
But he was worried about Pietro. Extremely worried. The behaviour he'd witnessed last night was completely abnormal. Did that mean that Pietro was mad and if so, should he help him or back right off? What if he'd caused that madness with his betrayal?  
  
"Where is he?" Lance heard himself asking. He had no idea what had happened to Pietro after he'd left him.  
  
"On the couch," said Fred, a yawn engulfing his features. "Me and Todd stayed with him awhile. He passed out so we put him on the couch to sleep it off."  
  
"Right," Lance murmured, unconsciously heading to the living room. It was only when he was inside, and staring at the huddled form of Pietro in the big chair that he began to panic. What was he doing there, what would he say? Had Pietro noticed him and was it safe to leave, or would it be better to stay and talk things through like mature adults?  
  
Somehow, Lance decided that acting like a mature adult was the better option. It was either that or he went on to auto-pilot, which was something along the lines of 'I must win Pietro back because I want him like crazy'; he wasn't quite sure.  
  
"Hey," he said softly, sitting down on the arm of the chair. Pietro raised his eyes, which, he was relieved to see, were not red or swollen but admittedly a little puffy. What was shocking was their hollowness and the complete lack of Pietro-sparkle that usually buzzed around the room whenever the boy was present.  
  
"How's things?" Lance asked, wanting to touch him, to rub his shoulders or hug him- anything to cure him. He decided against it as after last night, he had become afraid of Pietro's unpredictable nature.  
  
"Bad," Pietro shifted in the chair and curled further into himself. "Very bad."  
  
"I'm worried," Lance stated, so simply that it surprised himself. He'd been hoping that Pietro would have returned to his normal self, however silly a dream it was.  
  
"Don't bother," Pietro sighed, covering his face with his hands. "No, I'm not being all self-pitying. I just. I have problems, Lance. I can't deal with people and.. stuff."  
  
Lance didn't know what bothered him so much about this speech. Pietro was normally far more articulate, more witty and responsive. What he didn't know was that he was facing the real Pietro Maximoff, screwed-up teen extraordinaire. Words couldn't help him now.  
  
"Some shit happened in my past," Pietro continued, having just about enough self-control not to divulge exactly what had happened. "It made me scared of getting close to people in case I lost them.."  
  
Lance breathed in, sucking in the air through his front teeth and for once, he thought he understood. Pietro had trusted him, let the two of them get really close and then what had he, stupid, stupid fuckwad Lance done? He'd totally betrayed Pietro's trust and in the screwed-up speed demon's opinion, Pietro had lost him. He couldn't let him think that. He didn't want to lose Pietro, not yet. Perhaps not ever.  
  
"You haven't lost me," he said firmly and cupped Pietro's chin, not caring anymore about whether the boy would lose it again. If it happened again, he'd help him through it and hopefully save a few heirlooms in the process. "I know I did a stupid thing and it really hurt you, but you haven't lost me."  
  
"You'll stay?"  
  
Lance nodded.  
  
"It was. revolting with Kitty," he said thoughtfully.  
  
"Revolting?" Pietro cracked a weak smirk. "Were you looking for a porno mag and picked up the dictionary instead?"  
  
Lance laughed. It wasn't particularly funny, but he wanted to make Pietro feel at ease.  
  
"She didn't know what she was doing. I didn't know what I was doing. It was all fumbling and groping in the dark.. I kept thinking 'I'm gonna stop now' but it never really worked out. Hormones," he added as an afterthought. "I know it was a bad thing to do, but it proved to me how much I didn't want her and how much I.. well.. You know."  
  
Pietro sighed, removing himself from Lance's grip. "I'm gonna get some food. Want anything?"  
  
As he watched Pietro walk towards the door, Lance grew annoyed. His speech, which, admittedly, wasn't going to win him any case, had been totally ignored. He'd just very-nearly-almost told Pietro about his 'feelings' and as far as he was concerned, he was snubbed.  
  
"You always have to change the subject," he protested, blocking Pietro from the door. Super speed may have been powerful, but it wasn't much use when all limbs were pinned to a doorframe by Lance's bigger and stronger body.  
  
"Lance, you know I'm a psycho. I wouldn't push things if I were you."  
  
"I'm not losing you," Lance insisted. The way his eyes burnt fervently into Pietro's was painful.  
  
"Get out of the way," Pietro warned, his voice shaking with suppressed rage and panic. How dare Lance? How dare he?  
  
"I'll help you-"  
  
"Let me go!"  
  
"I won't make another mistake-"  
  
"Stop it!"  
  
"I'm still here. I haven't left you-"  
  
"I've got to let this go- I've-"  
  
"I'll always be here, just try and stop me."  
  
"I've got to let this go, I've got to let this go, let me go, stop it stop it LET ME GO!" Pietro begged, struggling to breathe.  
  
Lance shook his head. "Never."  
  
A long pause.  
  
Finally, feebly. "Why?"  
  
"Because," Lance told him, letting a very sudden, solitary tear run down his cheek. He didn't know what the purpose in crying was. "Because you're all I have."  
  
Pietro's breath hitched. Not 'I'm all you have.' 'You're all I have.' The words seemed to turn things around- suddenly, Lance was needy and dependent and he was the source of strength. The tears were Lance's, the pain was his; no, the pain was theirs and the only way to cure it was to heal together.  
  
But the balloon. The red balloon. He'd have to let go eventually- release it and set it free.  
  
There was medicine in mutual sadness. Pietro kissed Lance's lips gently, tasting the salt of the tear as it ran its course. A faint warmth spread between them, noticeably weaker than before and barely noticeable. Burying his face in Pietro's neck, Lance released his tight grip on the speed demon and turned it into a lamenting embrace. What was he mourning for- was it a love lost, or the Pietro he'd ruined, or even himself? Or was it the bond they had once shared, now loose at the hinges and faded around the edges? He blinked, and he realised that everything was blurred. His love for Pietro felt fuzzy, but not in a good way. He felt hung-over, like he was waking up in the early morning alone and confused.  
  
Pietro let Lance kiss his mouth, holding him at the elbows. He imagined that Lance's lips were forming goodbyes against his own. A layer of thick air lay between them, stifling and nauseating, smelling like salt. It was an odd moment, and Pietro felt strangely alone in Lance's arms- comforted, but alone.  
  
"Don't go, stay," whispered Lance, lips against a white temple. "Don't let this go."  
  
Pressing his palm against Lance's, Pietro looked straight into his eyes. They were softer, browner, but blurred, like he was looking at an underdeveloped photograph. Lance kissed him again, keeping his eyes open because he was too afraid to close them in case Pietro disappeared.  
  
"You haven't lost me," Pietro said against Lance's cheek. 'Not yet,' he mouthed sadly as Lance's lips came down on his once more. 


	14. Losin' my hop

Thanks for reviewing, big hugs to you. Oh, and Kickassangel I LOVE YOU TOO!  
  
I'm calling Fred Freddie because I have a soft spot for him. Poor poppet, all he wants is for those nasty people to stop laughing at him. He's a tortured soul, I tell you. A tortured soul!  
  
Some of you might be wondering about the time frame. Congratulations, so am I! Let's just say Wanda isn't on the scene, but there are hints of her presence in Pietro's past if you want them.  
  
Yes.. I am as childish as Todd, the teacher is called Jenny Taylor purely because it sounds like genitalia.  
  
Notice that Lance is the only person who says Pietro's name right in this chapter. There is a reason for this.  
  
*  
  
"Um. You've practised driving before this, yo?"  
  
Lance shook his head, sticking his keys in the ignition. "Nope."  
  
Todd turned a sickly shade of green. "D-don't you think you might be kinda. shaky on the road for the first time in.. what, two months?"  
  
"You can always walk instead, Todd. Fred tells me the two of you enjoyed that very much."  
  
The Todd reflected in the rearview mirrow scowled in typical teenage boy- esque style. Walking five miles to school and back every day had been torture; he was sure Freddie had gone into cardiac arrest on several occasions, and lugging his huge form all the way to Bayville High had almost crippled him. He was pretty sure that so much walking was making him 'lose his hop', and without his hop, what was he? A lizard?  
  
"Just be careful," he warned Lance in a shaky voice.  
  
"Yes, mother." Lance blew his fringe out of his eyes and beeped the horn impatiently. "PIETRO GET YOUR SKINNY ASS DOWN HERE IF YOU WANT A RIDE!"  
  
Todd snickered. He saw Lance's eyes narrow in the rearview mirror.  
  
"Grow up, Tolensky."  
  
After deducing that Pietro and Lance were now an item, Todd had found a new game in the form of Spot-The-Innuendo. Now Lance had to be very careful about what he said, for Pietro, sharp as he was, had not cottoned on to Todd's game yet.  
  
"I'm coming!" he called from the bathroom window, sending Todd into fits of hysterical laughter. Seconds later, he was there in the passenger seat with not a hair out of place. Lance hated it when he did that.  
  
"Where's Freddie?"  
  
"Mystique's got him."  
  
Pietro winced. "Rather him than me."  
  
There was a short silence, stating Lance and Todd's simultaneous agreement.  
  
"First day back, Pietro," Lance grinned as he pulled out of the driveway. "Think you can handle this?"  
  
"Piece of cake," Pietro smirked. Lance noticed that the smirk didn't quite reach his eyes, realising how transparent Pietro's façade had become after he'd seen him broken into a thousand pieces. "I forgot to tell you, Lance, you have a geometry test today."  
  
"Nugh?" Lance raised an eyebrow. Driving felt completely alien to him, and he was having to concentrate far more than usual. So far, he already taken two wrong turns and he wasn't out on the main road yet.  
  
"Yeaaaaahhh," Pietro's eyes met his in the mirror with a faint wicked glint. "A big, long, hard one."  
  
Todd could barely contain himself. Pietro gave him a puzzled look as the amphibeous mutant clutched his stomach, struggling for air as his laughter came out in a donkey's bray.  
  
"Big, long, hard one.." gasped Todd, wiping his eyes as his laughter died down. "You'd know, wouldn't ya, Piet?"  
  
Pietro merely blinked. "Huh...? SHIT! Lance, watch that fucking old lady!"  
  
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!  
  
Yes, today was going to be a very, very long day.  
  
*  
  
Bitch, Pietro silently told the back of Pryde's offending head. Bitch bitch bitch, you stay away from Lance and his damn hormones.  
  
"And what do you think the belladonna is symbolic of, Pi-etro?"  
  
Stupid drunken whore, I'll rip those stupid bobbles right out of your hair and feed them to-  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"The belladonna, Pi-etro. What does it symbolise?"  
  
"Uhhh." He absent-mindedly stared at the cover of Hartley's 'The Go- Between' as if it would grow lips and tell him the answer. "Poison?"  
  
"Poison.." Miss Jenny Taylor sat on the edge of her desk, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "You could say that, but what exactly is the poison?"  
  
Kitty stuck up her hand. Miss Taylor ignored it and pushed her glasses down her nose a little.  
  
"Pi-etro, can you elaborate on what you think the poison is?"  
  
"Um... No-o."  
  
"Have you even read the book?"  
  
"Yes, yes I have, Miss Taylor. I loved every word."  
  
Miss Taylor gave him a warm smile. All the teachers loved Pietro, he had a certain unmatchable charm. Of course, he was terribly attention-seeking but they let this go, considering his rather fat file in the counsellor's office.  
  
"What I'm saying, Miss Taylor, is that I couldn't even begin to describe this poison. It's so.. er.. so intricately constructed by the wonderful Hartley. The imagery.. it's.. simply delightful," said Pietro in his smoothest, nicest voice. He liked to flirt with Miss Jenny Taylor. She always flirted back and made him feel special.  
  
"Oh, you do talk such bullshit Maximoff," she drawled in a mockery of a long-suffering voice. "So can anybody tell me what the significance of the belladonna is?"  
  
Kitty was practically jumping out of her chair. Her arm was getting tired and she was now holding it up with her other hand, waving it in the hope to be seen.  
  
Miss Taylor, of course, ignored her female students. What fun were they, after all? Muttering something about going to the photo-copier, she made her way to the football pitch for a quick cigarette.  
  
Kitty slumped back into her chair, crossing her arms and pouting. Ha ha, Pietro thought immaturely. Ha bloody ha.  
  
"Is Lance in?" she asked, turning around with such force that Pietro almost fell off his chair in shock. He was, of course, much too cool to actually do such a thing.  
  
"What's it to you if he is?" Pietro asked, panic secretly beginning to turn his stomach.  
  
"We need to talk," said Kitty stiffly. Pietro could see that she was trying to stop her lip from trembling, and for this he added another childish Ha ha on her behalf.  
  
"Talk?" Pietro leant back in his chair, going into the age-old defence mechanism of Wanker-Mode. "I wasn't aware that you and Lance ever did any of that."  
  
Kitty's eyes widened in horror. "You. He told you..?"  
  
"Yeah," Pietro leaned in closer, adopting an 'indifferently concerned' expression. "Listen, Shi. Kitty. I wouldn't try talking to Lance if I were you. Take it from somebody who knows the guy, he's not worth it. Move on."  
  
Inside, Pietro was feeling that he might keel over at any given point from anxiety. He had to stop Kitty from seeing Lance. He didn't care if it was selfish or manipulative, it wasn't like he was a Good Samaritan anyway. It wasn't fair that he should finally have something of his own and have it stolen right from under his nose by an X-Geek who, in his opinion, was remarkably plain. There was no way he was going to stand by and let another person he loved be taken away from him, the first time had torn him apart. Eventually, he would let Lance go, but for now he wanted him; his taste, his touch, his smell, his body and his heart.  
  
"Whatever, PeeeeeeeAYtrrrrooh."  
  
God, but he hated the way she said his name! It was all over-enunciated, every letter was strained and pronounced like she was trying to impress foreigners by using 'their language.' Ugh. He shuddered.  
  
"No no, seriously, you don't wanna talk to him! Kitty, this is for your own good. C'm'on, I'm trying to help you out here. Lance is a jerk, okay, he only ever wanted to screw you."  
  
Which primarily was true. It was not, however, the best thing to say to an already emotional Kitty Pryde. Her eyes filled and she bit down hard on her lower lip. Pietro almost felt bad for her, that is, until he remembered that she was his adversary. She was the temptress, the one who'd stolen Lance and god knows she'd do it again at the drop of a hat. She would take Lance from him and leave him all alone, leave him to his twisted little mind. Pietro couldn't have that- he was afraid to be alone because he feared himself.  
  
"I deserve to hear it from him," sniffed Kitty. The bell rang, and she began to pack up her stuff. "We both have this period free, I'll-"  
  
"NO!" Pietro feared that if he had not been holding a large pile of books, he would have latched on to her ankle in desperation. "Please don't talk to him."  
  
Kitty wiped her eyes across her sleeve, staring at him questioningly. "Give me one good reason not to."  
  
"Because," Pietro set his jaw. Desperation had won. "I don't want you to."  
  
If Kitty had ever sworn in her whole life, then 'What the fuck?' would have perfectly complimented the expression on her face.  
  
"You're, like, totally freaking me out, PeeeeAYtrroooh. What happened between me and Lance is none of your business. And." she trailed off, her eyes suddenly lighting up with a revelation. "I know what this is about. You want to keep Lance to yourself, don't you? You've looked after him for two months and now you can't bear to let him out of your sight. It's all about control, isn't it? All those times I called and you said he wasn't there.. You didn't want him to talk to me then and you don't now. Well, let me tell now, PeeeeAYtrrrroooh- Get. A. Life. Or at least get some, like, professional help."  
  
And with that, Kitty flicked her hair and walked out of Miss Jenny Taylor's classroom.  
  
*  
  
Pietro felt a warm, heavy hand on his shoulder as he put his books away. He didn't need to turn around to see whose hand it was, he knew the feel and the smell of it. Lance.  
  
"You holding up okay?" Lance asked, concern evident in his eyes and voice. He gave Pietro's shoulder a small, reassuring rub.  
  
"You think it too," Pietro hissed, neither physically nor mentally strong enough to remove Lance's hand. "Everybody thinks I'm crazy."  
  
Lance's eyes grew softer, his voice quieter and deeper. "I don't think you're crazy. Did something happen today?"  
  
"Oh, yeah," Pietro leaned his forehead against the cool metal of his locker and laughed bitterly. "Kitty happened."  
  
What had really upset Pietro was not Kitty's comment about his mental state, but the fact that she had figured him out so well. Now he was worried that he was obsessing over Lance, desperate to control his life. He'd always thought he was crazy, but he'd never thought that his love could be a kind of madness before. Was it a destructive love, one of those terrible powerful ''til death do us part' loves in which the tormented one eventually takes an axe to his beloved to literally sever the ties? Shit, everything was so insane. Love shouldn't have to be painful, yet now it seemed every kiss with Lance was a kiss of death and why? Because of him. Because he was crazy. He couldn't hold on and he couldn't let go, he couldn't be with him and he couldn't be without him.  
  
"Never mind," Pietro said, forcing himself out of his doubt and sadness. Lance trusted him. Lance didn't think he was crazy.  
  
That was enough, for now, to make him stay. 


	15. Quicksilver returns

Thanks for your reviews. Kickassangel, I am so so so so flattered!! I TRIPLE love you.  
  
I don't own 'I'm too sexy for my shirt', Right Said Fred do. Don't ask how it made its way into this story.  
  
No angst! Shock! Horror! Well. I can't make Pietro sad all the time, much as I'd like to.  
  
*  
  
"Do we have to?"  
  
"Looks like it."  
  
"Crap," Pietro perched on the arm of the sofa, watching Lance put on his uniform. "I really don't want to."  
  
"Aw, come on, Piet," Lance said as he smoothed out the creases on his legs. "You're always up for a fight."  
  
"That was then," Pietro almost whined. "This is now. We're not ready for this, Lance. We haven't trained- we've been out of action for two months! And look," he cried earnestly, grabbing a little flesh from under his ribs. "I've let myself go!"  
  
"Fuck off," Lance muttered teasingly, throwing Pietro's uniform at his head. "Put your gear on."  
  
Pietro set his jaw. "No."  
  
"Fine. Fight the X-Geeks half naked, then. I'm not complaining," he added as an afterthought. And he certainly wasn't. Pietro's body was beautiful- pale and smooth like a priceless marble sculpture.  
  
"They'd love that," Pietro mused, a half smirk lighting up his features. "After all, I'm the hot one."  
  
Lance shook his head, grinning. "No way, dude. I'm definitely the hot one."  
  
"What planet are you on, mullet-man?"  
  
Giving Pietro a playful shove to the chest as he walked by, Lance stood in front of the mirror and flexed his muscles. Pietro peered over the arm of the sofa at him, the mischievous glint in his eye fully restored.  
  
"Ohhh yeah," Lance crooned at his reflection. "Deff-initely hotter."  
  
"Dream on, babycakes!" Pietro vaulted over the arm of the sofa and appeared at Lance's side in a flash.  
  
"Put your uniform on, Pietro," Lance teased as the speed demon flexed his own muscles and waggled his eyebrows theatrically at their reflections. "You can't win."  
  
"No can do, Lancey," he replied, running his hands seductively over his chest. "I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts! Oh, I'm too sexy for-"  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
Pietro and Lance saw Fred at the doorway, reflected in the mirror looking bemused to say the least.  
  
"I- ah- came to say that we should get going. Pietro, why ain't you suited up yet?"  
  
"Because," Lance said, giving Pietro's reflection a wink. "He's too sexy for his shirt, too sexy for his shirt, so sexy it-"  
  
"Yeah, I heard that part," mumbled Fred, giving them one last pitying look as he left the room. Pietro promptly threw himself down on to an armchair and burst into a fit of giggles.  
  
"Come on, speedy," Lance sighed, picking up the flamboyant aqua uniform. "Fun's over."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Pietro grinned, putting his suit on in a blurry two seconds. "It's only just begun."  
  
*  
  
The Brotherhood waited in the cold graveyard, crowded around one of Mystique's shambolic diagrams.  
  
"Is that scribble me?"  
  
"No, doofus, it's Cyclops."  
  
"How can you tell, yo?"  
  
"It's got a red bit coming out of it, look."  
  
Pietro blew on his hands and rubbed them together. He was looking for a sign of life- a red optic blast, a furry blue demon; anything would suffice. Something about having the team back together and being back in uniform had made him feel a lot better. Now he was the invincible Quicksilver again, he could leave the panicky, angsty Pietro behind. Problems? What problems? Quicksilver had no problems.  
  
"Am I that dot?"  
  
"NO, Todd. You're the green one."  
  
"Awwww, why am I green, yo? I hate green."  
  
Quicksilver wasn't weak, like Pietro. Quicksilver didn't get goosebumps at the thought of anything; not least something as silly as a relationship. Quicksilver wouldn't cry or lose control, and he certainly wouldn't be afraid of losing what he loved. Quicksilver wasn't alone, but Pietro was.  
  
"Do I have to fight Wagner? Mystique always makes me fight him, yo, just because she knows I won't hurt him."  
  
Pietro tapped Lance on the shoulder, secretly blushing at the way the boy relaxed into the contact. "Who've I got?"  
  
"Daniels, naturally."  
  
Pietro punched the air with his fist. "Score!"  
  
Suddenly, Lance became very pale as he looked at the little black dot marked L. He was fighting the pink dot. And he knew what that meant: Kitty.  
  
"Hey, anyone wanna swap?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. He was not ready to face her yet. After what had.. happened between them, he was sure she wouldn't be too happy to see him. Panicked, he pictured Kitty commanding Scott to blast his balls off and then fashioning them into a charming pair of earrings. With sequins. Ouch.  
  
Pietro looked at the diagram and understood. He didn't want Lance to fight Kitty either.  
  
"You want Daniels?" he asked, grinning inwardly at the way Lance nodded vigorously and almost fell over with relief. Perhaps Lance really didn't like Kitty after all. Things were definitely looking up.  
  
"I'll take Shitty then," Pietro confirmed.  
  
Lance almost smiled, but a new scene flickered into his head. A homicidal Pietro, stabbing Kitty repeatedly with one of Daniels' spikes. "He's mine, I tell you!" screeched the rage driven speed demon as Kitty begged for mercy. "Mine!"  
  
Rightfully concerned, he took Pietro's arm and led him aside, speaking out of the side of his mouth so that Todd couldn't hear.  
  
"You're not gonna.. hurt her, are you? I mean. With all the stuff that happened with her and that shit she said to you.. You're not gonna..?"  
  
Pietro shook his head.  
  
"No, Lance, I swear. This isn't about revenge or anger." And surprisingly, it wasn't. But if it wasn't for his own sake, then..  
  
"I don't want you to fight her if it makes you uncomfortable." He blinked, utterly shocked at the words which had left his mouth. He thought he'd just been jealous. "Woah.. What's happening to me?"  
  
"Looks like you're thinking about other people. Do you want to lie down for a while?" Lance smirked.  
  
Pietro gave Lance an affectionate cuff around the back of the head. "Don't expect it to happen too often. Now where are those X-Geeks?"  
  
"Maybe Mystique sent us on another of her wild goose chases."  
  
"You, my friend, overestimate geese." Pietro grinned and gave a quick glance over his shoulder. The coast was clear; Fred and Todd were engrossed in Mystique's badly spelt instructions. He took the chance to give Lance a short kiss on the lips, loving to take the rock tumbler by surprise.  
  
Lance blinked twice, a slow smile spreading over his face. He held Pietro by the shoulders, rubbing them softly to give some heat to the boy. He'd noticed that Pietro's breath was coming out in a mist.  
  
"You're okay," he said simply, the absence of a question mark meaning that he didn't doubt it for a second. His confirmation made Pietro feel completely comfortable in his presence. He was okay, they were okay, it was all okay. No, it was better than okay: it was bloody brilliant.  
  
"I feel better," Pietro nodded. "Don't tell anyone, but I may even be happy."  
  
He took the opportunity to give Lance's bottom a small slap. Lance yelped, pulling Pietro into a loose headlock. He fleetingly wondered why it was so much easier to be silly with Pietro, but banished the thought to the back of his mind. Why waste their happiness?  
  
In a desperate bid for freedom, Pietro bit down on one of Lance's fingers. It was not enough to hurt him, but enough to shock him into letting go. He laughed as Lance loosened his hold, and smiled as he was given a proper kiss. This was not a sad, healing kiss. It was not a passionate lusty kiss. All it was was a kiss, and divine in its simplicity. It was a confirmation of emotion, that everything might just work out fine in the end.  
  
"Let's go back," Lance sighed when the kiss finally ended and the real world began to turn again. "Don't want the X-Geeks to know we've gone soft, do we?"  
  
"Guess not." Somehow, Pietro couldn't imagine inviting any of them to their wedding, after all.  
  
Without another word, the boys walked back to their team-mates. Todd was psyching himself up, throwing punches and kicks at an imaginary opponent. Fred was leaning against a tree, staring out into the distance through narrowed eyes.  
  
"Any sign of the X-Freaks?" Lance asked, repositioning his ridiculous helmet.  
  
Fred didn't respond. He was lost in his own world, humming something that sounded suspiciously like 'I'm too sexy for my shirt'. 


	16. Not even slightly funny

Kickassangel, you SO totally rock. Thank you so so so much! Lol, I'll start looking for a wedding dress.. I reckon Lance is sexier too, probably because he's more gruff and manly. Pietro's a bit too pretty for me.  
  
I don't know why I feel the need to make this clear, but Evan's pronunciation of Pietro isn't Pie-etro, it's P-y as in pew. Hehehee, Evan loves Pietro. It probably won't be a big part of the story unless anybody really, really wants it to be.  
  
Well.. this is an odd chapter. Don't know how I'm going to follow this up.  
  
*  
  
On seeing his new adversary, Evan practically pouted.  
  
"Where's Pyetro?"  
  
"Fightin' Kitty."  
  
Evan's eyes narrowed. "Why?"  
  
Lance shrugged languidly. There was something oddly satisfying in Evan's obvious disappointment at being denied the chance to fight his favourite enemy.  
  
"You normally fight Kitty," Evan continued, his whine oddly like Pietro's. "I always fight Pyetro."  
  
Lance shrugged again. "Not today, dude. We gonna actually fight or what?"  
  
"I don't wanna fight you."  
  
"Awwwwww.. Scared?"  
  
Evan kept silent. That really went without saying. Lance was two years older than him, about twice his size and would probably crush him into the ground before he could say "kebab".  
  
"I wanna fight Maximoff."  
  
Beginning to get infuriated, Lance let a small tremour run through the ground. Pietro and Evan had been friends once, and he could now see why. Had he known Evan was such a whiney little toe-rag, he wouldn't have bothered with him in the first place.  
  
"Well, you can't, okay? Deal with it. Your little crush on Pietro is gonna have to wait."  
  
Evan bared his teeth and seconds later, resembled a disgruntled porcupine. Nobody implied that he had.. feelings for Maximoff! Lance raised a hand, flexing his fingers to generate a small earthquake and the first spike was shot.  
  
Thus began the battle between Avalanche and Spyke.  
  
*  
  
Zoo-ooooo-oooooooooom! Swish!  
  
"C'm'on Shitty! Try harder!"  
  
"Don't," pant, "call," pant, "me that!"  
  
Pietro gave a shrill laugh. He had no intention to harm Kitty, just to keep her busy. Running around her in circles proved to be an excellent way to do just that, and it had the added bonus of driving her crazy too. He really was a genius sometimes, if he didn't say so himself.  
  
"What's'a matter, Shitty? Huh, Shitty? Don't like your nickname, Shitty? Don't you think it su- oooo- arrrrgh!"  
  
And he was off the ground, feet wildly flailing in no particular direction. He could hear Kitty's triumphant laughter and another cackling female in the form of Jean Grey, the source of his current disability. He scowled. Stupid X-Geeks always had to help each other out, why hadn't he remembered?  
  
"Ha ha," he spat. "Fucking hilarious."  
  
When his feet finally stopped moving, he was left hanging hopelessly in the air. He knew she'd have to drop him at some point, after all, the mind wasn't made to support humans. For the first (and hopefully the last) time in his life, he found himself wishing he was Fred's colossal weight rather than a mere waif like himself. Then he'd see how Jean liked holding him up.  
  
And, of course, the pièce de resistance, X-Man number three. A sharp optic blast to the abdomen, courtesy of the charming Mr Summers, sent Pietro hurtling to the ground.  
  
"You BITCH!" he howled at Scott, clutching his stomach. "All of you. bitches!"  
  
And to think he was doing all this just to stop Lance from being 'uncomfortable'. The Rock-head had better be satisfied, that was all he had to say as he struggled to pull himself up and was treated to yet another delightful optic blast. Did they X-Men play fair? Did they bollocks.  
  
Meanwhile, Evan was trying to utmost to skewer Lance. The ground had opened up in front of him, and he guessed that any certain movements may result in plummeting to his death. That didn't matter so much to him- something else was really, really getting to Evan.  
  
"I do NOT have a crush on Pyetro!" he roared as a rogue spike flew past Lance's left ear. "He's an irritating, stupid kid who needs to grow up!"  
  
Barely hearing this, Lance stamped his foot and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He disliked Evan immensely, particularly now he'd made up his mind that Spyke-boy was making moves on his man.  
  
"Evan, careful!" screeched a disembodied voice. Lance knew the voice only too well- that high pitch and its upward inflections could only mean one thing, and the sight of her phasing through the ground to grab Evan's waist and knock him out of danger confirmed it. Pryde.  
  
"Kitty?" Lance cried, suddenly feeling very.. awkward. He even shuffled his feet a little, staring up through his hair.  
  
"L-laance," she sputtered, equally awkward. They stared at each other without actually looking for a second, neither knowing what to do or say.  
  
"I thought you were fighting Pietro," said Lance, the mere mention of the name making Evan look up at him.  
  
Kitty jerked a thumb in the opposite direction. "He's out. Scott got him a few times with the-"  
  
But Miss Pryde never got to finish her sentence, for as if possessed by Quicksilver himself, Lance took off in pursuit of Pietro. Evan trotted along at Lance's heels like an obedient puppy, tongue fortunately still in his mouth. Kitty stood watching them retreat with her mouth wide open, the perfect target for a large faceful of Todd's slime.  
  
Lance reached the fallen Pietro in seconds, kneeling down by the boy. He was lying in an odd, spread-eagled position. A wheezing sound told Lance that he was breathing, and he was relieved for a second before beginning to panic that Pietro had a ruptured lung. Not caring who was watching, he grabbed at one of Pietro's wrists and felt for a pulse. He was fleetingly reminded of a moment between them not so long ago, his useless hand on Pietro's heart, the electric eye contact. What if he'd lost all that? What if he'd lost Pietro?  
  
"Pyetro, man, you okay?" Evan knelt by Pietro's other side, slapping his face repeatedly.  
  
Slap-slap.  
  
"Pyetro?"  
  
Where was the damn pulse?  
  
"Maximoff?"  
  
Slap-slap slap!  
  
Was he dead? Where the hell was the pulse?  
  
"PYETRO!"  
  
Slap-slap-slap slap!  
  
And what was that annoying buzzing running through his fingers?  
  
"Maximoff, c'm'on man, wake up!"  
  
"Evan, come fight with us."  
  
"But Pyetro, he's-"  
  
"Evan!"  
  
Slap-slap.  
  
Buzz.. Come on Quicksilver, Lance willed. Buzz. Quick.. Why did that ring a bell? Quick- Pietro's heart was quick! The buzz was his pulse, Pietro was alive, Pietro was alive!  
  
"Oh jesus!" Lance cried, grabbing the huddled form of Pietro and hugging it to his chest. By now, he had quite an audience. He heard Evan's sharply drawn breath.  
  
"Oh god," Evan moaned, his face turning deathly pale. Kurt was instantly by his side, furry three-fingered hand clasping Evan's shoulder.  
  
Although blissfully relieved that Pietro wasn't dead, Lance was worried about him being unconscious. What if it was a coma, and he'd never hear Pietro's wicked giggle again? Yes, the wicked giggle, just like that one in his ear. Just like. What?  
  
"Pietro," Lance whispered to the speed demon. "You're pretending?"  
  
Pietro nodded a fraction against Lance's chest, and Lance got his second Hallelujah Chorus of relief for the day. Before annoyance, extreme annoyance.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I was out for a while," Pietro hissed when he was sure nobody was watching. "I couldn't go back when I came round, Scott totally kicked my ass."  
  
Lance grinned against Pietro's cheek. Poor, cowardly little thing. He'd have to do better to protect him in future.  
  
"Evan thinks I'm dead," Pietro whispered, lips brushing against Lance's earlobe. It was all Lance could do to resist ravishing him there and then, which would not have boded well considering that most people now thought Pietro was a corpse.  
  
"He has a thing for you," Lance told him, watching Kurt and Kitty desperately try to comfort the porcupine.  
  
"I know," Pietro said, taking advantage of his position and curling closer into Lance. It was nice, being held like that. Very nice. Safe, and warm, and comforting; the way he should have been held when he was little. "Shall we have some fun with him?"  
  
Lance didn't need to be asked twice. He nodded against the top of Pietro's head, taking in the scent of his hair.  
  
"Oh, Pietro, why did you have to di-iii-iie?" he wailed. A fact known to very few, Lance was quite into acting. He could even make himself cry, and revelled in the two fat, self-formulated tears that rolled down his cheeks.  
  
"W-what?" a small voice asked. "'Tro's.. dead, yo?"  
  
"Shit," Pietro hissed into Lance's chest. He hadn't expected Todd and Fred to be a part of this.  
  
"Er," Lance mumbled, looking from Evan to Todd. What was he going to do, lie for a bit of fun or be the big man and tell the truth for his froggy brother?  
  
"Noooooooo," Todd wailed, flinging himself down beside Pietro. Fred simply stood, brow furrowed and hands clasped in front of him. The X-Men were beginning to leave, and Lance was aggrieved to find Wolverine was carrying a struggling Evan over his shoulder. This was getting to be beyond a joke.  
  
"Fuck fuck fuck," Pietro told Lance's right nipple. It wasn't funny, it wasn't funny at all. He felt awful.  
  
"It's okay, guys," Lance muttered once he was sure the X-Men were out of earshot.  
  
"It's not!" sobbed Todd. "He's dead!"  
  
"No I'm not," Pietro insisted, raising his head reluctantly from Lance's chest. Todd stared in horror, and promptly fell over backwards. Fred shook his head vigourously, not sure if he had witnessed a miracle.  
  
"Uhh.." Fred scratched his head. "Were you ever?"  
  
"No, he wasn't," Lance said, in the midst of slapping Todd's face much like Evan had slapped Pietro's. "It was a dumb joke and we're sorry. We didn't think you were in on it, or we wouldn't have done it. Shit, we didn't think anybody would believe it- I mean, Pietro was moving far too much to be convincing and if you ask me I totally overplayed it, and-"  
  
"STOP SLAPPING ME!" yelled Todd, who had come round in the middle of Lance's confession. He stared wildly from Pietro to Lance, then Lance to Pietro, then Fred, then Pietro again. His mouth formed obscenities that failed to be spoken, and rightfully pissed off, he hopped away before anybody could protest.  
  
Fred gave a low whistle.  
  
"Hey, you two are gonna have one hell of a lot of explainin' to do.." 


	17. Resurrections

Hurrah, I love you ALL for reviewing! Sorry for the delay, I got a bit stuck. In fact, I'm still not happy with this chapter so let me know what you think. I've been writing a load of poems lately, so if my language becomes a little odd you'll know why.  
  
Well, a bit of Lance angst here from his past.. Don't know where this came from. Just figured I'd need it to explain his insecurity.  
  
Scott bashing ensues. Sorry to any Shades fans, he just gets my goat.  
  
*  
  
Mystique stood on the doorstep, straightening her most demure black suit. She set her face to its most sombre expression, when truly she was numb inside. She didn't even know how the boy died, she had picked up the news on one of the X-Men's radios. She had to admit, it was sad. A waste of such a young life. Had her heart consisted entirely of frozen stone, she may have allowed a few tears, but that would have probably resulted in the smudging of her brand new fifty dollar mascara.  
  
Fred opened the door, looking suitably solemn, in her opinion.  
  
"Hey boss," he muttered, following her in.  
  
"No need for formalities today. ah," she paused. She thought it suitable to use the boy's first name in this scenario, only she had no idea what it was. Wayne? Tom? "Where is Quicksilver?" she asked, defeated by her short memory and utter indifference.  
  
"In the kitchen," Fred shrugged.  
  
Mystique frowned, thinking a kitchen was not the most ideal place to keep a corpse. In fact, it was completely unhygienic. She quickly ran through how much his burial would cost in her head, wondering if Magneto might fork out for it.  
  
"Do you want to. ah.. see him?"  
  
"NO!" Mystique cried abruptly. "No, no, I'm fine thank you. I just came to let you know that you have my.. ah.. sympathies."  
  
An increasingly awkward silence followed her comment, during which Fred stared at the floor and she tried her best to feign what she hoped looked like a sympathetic smile. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, wondering what the right thing for one to say was when somebody died. In the end, all she could manage was a curt "Goodbye" and a swift turn up the path. Death made her uncomfortable, as did the questionable smells and mess of the Boarding House that could only come about from a group of teenage boys living in harmony.  
  
Fred shrugged, lumbering off to the kitchen where Lance was sorting out the wreaths and bunches of flowers sent by the X-Men. Scott had brought them over earlier in an episode that had left him somewhat disgruntled.  
  
It went something like this. Scott ran the doorbell, and Lance answered it to find him standing there with the best solemn expression one could muster with sunglasses on and a generally gormless face.  
  
'We're all very sorry,' Scott had said, touching Lance's arm lightly. Lance resented that contact; he would never, ever touch Summers, not even with a ten-foot pole and a pair of rubber gloves to boot. 'I know we've never seen eye to eye, but in times like this we have to come together and-'  
  
'Piss off,' Lance told him simply. He was just getting to the Pietro's-Not- Dead part when the Divine Grace himself rudely interrupted him.  
  
'I thought you might react that way,' Scott sighed, shaking his head sadly at the poor life form that stood opposite him. 'It's perfectly natural to have feelings, Lance.' It was the 'Lance' that Lance resented so much. He had always been 'Alvers' or 'Shakedown' or some other witty moniker before. Scott had no right to be on first name terms with him, no right at all.  
  
'It's okay to open up, Lance,' Scott had told him, and the offending hand was moved to his shoulder. 'We all cry sometimes. When we lose a loved one- '  
  
'Excuse me,' Lance interrupted. 'Loved one?'  
  
'Yes, we guessed that Pietro was your boyfriend,' Scott smiled, thoroughly freaking Lance out. Nobody was supposed to know about him and Pietro! It wasn't as if they weren't subtle about their relationship. He didn't even think Todd had hatched on yet; Fred being completely out of the picture for his lesser wit. 'But it's okay to be. homosexual too, Lance. I know a gay guy and he's really normal, you'd never guess it.'  
  
Lance had rolled his eyes. 'Look, Shades, Pietro isn't-'  
  
'Wasn't,' Scott corrected kindly. 'He's gone Lance.'  
  
NO HE FUCKING ISN'T, YOU FOOL! Lance screamed mentally at Scott.  
  
'Anyway, we brought round these tokens of our sympathy and remembrance,' simpered Scott. 'And Lance, if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, any advice, you're always welcome at the Institute.'  
  
'I DON'T CRY! AND PIETRO'S NOT D-'  
  
But it had been too late. Scott had jumped into his car and driven away with one last pitying look at the broken home of the Brotherhood.  
  
And now, Lance found himself arranging a mixture of white carnations and ice blue roses. He had to admit that the flowers were suited to Pietro. Pretty and delicate, he thought sweetly, then shuddered a little at the feminine turn his mind had taken. He decided not to arrange the flowers anymore, instead turning his attentions to the considerably more masculine Fred.  
  
"Nice," Fred nodded his head towards one of the vases. Lance held up his hands in defence and gave a nervous laugh.  
  
"Pietro arranged them, not me. Hah ha, can you imagine a guy like me arranging fucking flowers? Ha... Heh. Pretty girly thing to do, huh?"  
  
Fred shrugged, fingering the stem of a long, white lily. "Whatever. Hey, I think Todd's starting to see the funny side of your little joke."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"He's gathering a memorial fund at the mall. 'pparently only person that paid up gave him a z. a zloppy or sompthin'. Some foreign money anyways. I'm gonna go help, I think.. See if we can get enough zloppys to trade in at the burrow dee change. Wanna come?"  
  
"No thanks," Lance sighed, picking up a copy of the Bayville Guardian. "Better stay here and Pietro-sit. Catch you later, big guy."  
  
"Yeah," Fred nodded and wandered out of the back door. Lance watched his large retreating figure until it was a mere speck, then he indulged in another sigh and opened the newspaper.  
  
There it was, staring out at him in bold, black print. He had been bracing himself for this moment, but it still made him uneasy as a unicyclist with a broken wheel. That was a good analogy, for he certainly felt wobbly as he read the words 'Bayville Teen Mutant Killed In Battle'.  
  
He read on, trying to remind himself of the fact that it wasn't true. Pietro was in the garden, and if he just craned his neck a little he would see him out of the window. Before he died, his foster father had told him never to believe anything he read and he was going to take that advice to heart. Admittedly, he shouldn't have read the article in the first place but Lance was drawn to it by a morbid fascination.  
  
His mouth formed the words silently as he read them, occasionally stopping to stare at a word and absorb it.  
  
'Young mutant Pietro Maximoff, 16, has died in a brutal battle between rival teams. He is said to have received fatal blasts from an older mutant, which rendered him unable to defend himself. The body of the boy has not yet been found, but-'  
  
No, that was enough. Lance ran a hand through his hair, surprised by its slight tremble. The words of the article twisted his stomach and made his eyes burn furiously, all reminders that they weren't true gone and replaced by a horrible numbness spreading through his body. Pietro's death was suddenly so real, and he was transported back to the moment of kneeling by his side trying to feel for a pulse. Suppose that pulse had never came? What would Pietro's body have felt like, limp and cold in his arms? And how would that numbing realisation feel, those three monosyllables He Is Dead?  
  
A world without Pietro. It was a concept he had wished for more than a few times; when Pietro was annoying, when Pietro was rude, when Pietro was a brat, when Pietro was a whiny pansy-boy, when Pietro was insecure and basically, when Pietro was Pietro. That was just it, Pietro had his flaws and he had grown to love them. How he'd miss the tears and the tantrums, the 'I want' and the 'look at me'. He couldn't imagine how painful it would be to never see that bottom lip jutting out again, because he loved those lips. He loved their fullness, their redness, and most of all he loved the feel of them next to his own, the brush of Pietro's eyelashes against his rough and humble cheek.  
  
Since he'd fallen in love with Pietro, the world had seemed different- or was it him who had changed? He had evolved somehow, he was no more the caveman driven by testosterone but a boy with feelings more complex than hunger, lust and tiredness. Admittedly, the horny side remained but he understood now that sex had to have a meaning to be good. Otherwise, you were doing little more than a poor re-enaction of a porn film, with more mess and less noise.  
  
Where would he be without Pietro- or perhaps the question was what would he be. He felt his lower lip quiver slightly, and sheepishly thought of his indignant remark to Scott that he didn't cry. Of course he cried, didn't everybody? Some science guy had once told him that tears simply washed the eye. If that was so, then what was there to be ashamed of? He didn't get embarrassed about washing his hair, did he?  
  
Washing his hair. He remembered the tiles on the bathroom ceiling, Pietro's slender fingers massaging his scalp, and how he had felt loved. Loved, because he was reminded of another set of tiles and another pair of hands some twelve years ago.  
  
Mrs Patricia Villard-Alvers, his mother. Her picture in his mind had become misty, as Daddy had turned all photographs of her to face the wall shortly after she died. He could remember her long brown hair, and the way it pooled around her head like a muddy halo in the hospital bed. He heard echoes of her lilting song in his dreams, songs that never seemed to have words. She had once told him she was going to be a singer, only Daddy wanted her to stay at home and watch the house. He sometimes imagined her sitting alone in her domestic prison, waiting for release. Once or twice, she had called the school to say he was ill and then spent the whole day doting on him, delighting in the presence of somebody else. They had gone for long walks or bus rides, and she'd always say wouldn't it be nice if they didn't go back home.  
  
It would have been nice, but they always did.  
  
At only eight years old, Lance hadn't realised her pain. She was wise enough to hide it from him, not clever enough to move away from it. A life of routine had given her a dull ache in her bones, and on the night of October 15th, she had taken a generous dose of painkillers before going to sleep on the sofa- she couldn't bear to sleep in the same room as her husband anymore.  
  
When Lance woke up the next morning, his mother was gone. His father was sponging vomit off the sofa, tidying up empty vodka bottles to take to the recycling bin. He was bundled into the car and taken to the hospital, where Patricia Villard-Alvers was dying. His lasting image of her was hair, clouds and clouds of brown hair. He wouldn't look at her face, because he was too scared to look at a dying person.  
  
"Lance, what the hell? Are you crying?"  
  
Lance sniffed and wiped his face with the palms of his hands, seeing a blurry Pietro through the gaps in between his fingers.  
  
"Yeah," he muttered, brushing thoughts of his mother aside. He didn't want to tell Pietro why. Sadly, the speedy one was not blessed with intuition.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Sniff.  
  
"Lance, why?"  
  
Blink.  
  
"Tell me what's up."  
  
No. He was not going to give in. He was not.  
  
"La-a-a-ance."  
  
"It's nothing."  
  
"LANCE! It is not nothing. Come on, you never cry. You're like.. the Terminator or something. Now," Pietro accentuated his words with a sharp prod to Lance's chest. "Tell. Me. What's.Wrong."  
  
Lance bit his lip and stared at the grains in the woodwork of the table. He couldn't yield to Pietro's persistent poking. The poking became sharper and harder, and Pietro used his speed to drill his finger into Lance's shoulder. It was a competition of obstinacy. The prodding was beginning to hurt and get under Lance's skin, but he didn't want to reveal his sadness to Pietro. Pietro was growing tired of his torture, but he was genuinely concerned for Lance and would not rest until he knew what was wrong.  
  
Pietro was the first to yield, drawing his finger away from Lance in grim defeat.  
  
"Ow, Jesus, what're you made of, lead?"  
  
"Naw.. Rocks," murmured Lance, a small smile tugging at the side of his mouth.  
  
Pietro rested his chin on his slender hands, first making a point of fussing over his hurt finger. "Pretty flowers," he observed. He pointed to a wreath spelling out 'PETRO' with a hint of a smirk. "That's gotta be from Daniels, bastard never could spell."  
  
He was surprised to find that Lance's eyes flashed with a dark emotion at these words.  
  
"It ain't funny, Pietro." "Lighten up, Lance, it is a little-" "No. It's not." "C'm'on, they all think I'm dead! Have you seen the paper?" Lance simply glared. "Yes." "You don't think it's even a little bit... funny..?" "NO!" Surprised by himself, Lance stood, waving his arms around dramatically to demonstrate his point. "Do you know how fucking awful it would be if you died? Have you ever lost anyone? Do you think I could hold it together if I lost you? Well? Do you?" Now Lance was the one prodding Pietro's chest with an earnest finger, his eyes pleading and threatening to spill over again. "No! You don't! You think it's funny! You don't think! Asshole!"  
  
"Lance," Pietro said quietly, taking Lance's wrist and rubbing his fingers. "Calm down."  
  
Lance stared defiantly, shoving Pietro into a corner. "Make me."  
  
"Hey," Pietro shoved Lance back. He had no right to push him around.  
  
"Fuck you!" Lance growled, picking Pietro up by the collar of his shirt and pressing him into the wall. Pietro squirmed against the overpowering strength of Lance's body as amber eyes burned into his. He was terrified of what he might do, because he knew just what Lance was capable off. He had seen him with those that had 'angered' him before and knew that when Lance was angry, he was a raging bull.  
  
"What're you gonna do," Pietro said, trying to control the tremour in his voice. "Hit me?"  
  
Lance just stared, breathing hard.  
  
"Go on then," Pietro whispered, testing him. "Prove what a big man you are."  
  
Blinded by rage, Lance raised a fist, imagining the satisfaction of it connecting with Pietro's jaw. It was the satisfaction in it that terrified him. He was just an abusive bastard, he got off on shoving other people around.  
  
"No," Lance said firmly to himself, bringing his hand down and promptly dropping Pietro who fell to the floor on his knees. He had to get away from all this and clear the building rage in his head before he did something terrible.  
  
"You know," said Pietro hesitantly as Lance turned to the door, remembering his words the morning after he had trashed Lance's room and how much they had meant. "You know you haven't lost me yet."  
  
"Yet?" Lance asked, his back still turned. "Maybe that's not good enough for me."  
  
"I'm not planning on dying for a long time," Pietro said as he rose and went over to wrap his arms around Lance's shoulders. Lance shuddered at the contact, and Pietro saw how shaken he was. "I won't leave you behind."  
  
"Don't you dare," Lance whispered in a shaky voice. "Don't you ever. If you do, I'll. I swear.."  
  
"Shut up, Rocky," Pietro told him and silenced Lance with a forceful kiss to remind him of his presence. He knew that now was the time to change the subject and to get things back to the way they were before, when everything was carefree.  
  
"Now, we've gotta think of a way to ressurect me. I'm thinking you drag me home and I wake up, maybe I was in a coma or something. Can a coma be that short? No, maybe I was just unconscious. Oooh, or you could bring me to some super mutant with the power to bring a person back to life? No? How about I was bluffing because it was one of Magneto's plans- that puts the blame on someone else and it's just the kind of thing he might-"  
  
"Pietro?"  
  
"- write to the papers, telling them that it was actually Pedro Maximov- Yes?"  
  
Lance sighed, beginning to soften. Today had taught him a very important lesson- the importance of Pietro to him, and the fact that he loved him more than anyone and anything in the world. He knew now that he couldn't bare to lose him, even if that did mean having to put up with the speed demon's many flaws.  
  
He smiled weakly, putting a hand over Pietro's mouth to stop the incessant babble." I love you, but you're an ass." 


	18. Home and Dry

Sorry I haven't updated in such a long time! My Lance and Pietro muses were in hibernation. Luckily I've now poked them with a big, pointy stick and dragged them bleary-eyed back into the world.  
  
Thanks and love to all of you as usual. Kickassangel- I am very, very honoured that recommended my little fic in yours. I Love you with a big L (L for Lance, hehehe). Oh yes, and Shaman Dani of the Flamingoes, feel free to steal my subplot. I think I stole it from another fic as it is! Looking forward to reading it.  
  
Bon appetit.  
  
*  
  
As Lance lay deep in thought in the semi-darkness, he heard soft footsteps on the carpet and then felt the mattress sag with the weight of somebody else. The irregularity of the breath compared to his own and an unmistakeable presence told him who it was without him having to turn his head and look at the person.  
  
"Hey," Pietro breathed, staring up at the ceiling to see what Lance was looking at. "Are you.. Are we.. Are you okay now?"  
  
Lance inhaled and held the breath for a few seconds before letting it go. He wished that he could simply answer "yes", but the truth was he didn't know how he was feeling.  
  
"Maybe, I guess," he answered after a considerable pause.  
  
Pietro concentrated on Lance's toes, thinking that looking at his face might be a bit obtrusive. After a while, the grey marl of Lance's oversize socks swam out of focus and Pietro blinked them away.  
  
"So, today was weird," he offered. His voice sounded odd in the almost holy silence of the room. He felt Lance's head bob up and down beside his in a nod. That much he knew.  
  
Then, in a very sudden movement, Pietro turned so that his body was facing Lance. He stared into that face like he had never seen it before, forcing eye contact.  
  
"Would you really have hit me?" he asked quietly, and Lance looked away ashamed. He blinked, which seemed to last an eternity and then looked back at Pietro with sad, wide eyes like empty plates.  
  
"I dunno," he mumbled.  
  
"Right," Pietro said and let a silence hang in the air for a few seconds. "Well, if you ever do that again I won't fucking tolerate it. I mean it Lance, you try something like that again and I'm walking. I won't be treated like that- I'm not gonna take your abuse and be your bitch, no fucking way." He emphasised his last three words with a short, sharp pause between every word and glad that he had made his point, he raised an eyebrow at Lance expectantly.  
  
"Okay," Lance simply murmured. Pietro's eyes flashed with some unregistered emotion and he repeated Lance's answer incredulously.  
  
"Okay?"  
  
Lance sighed. "Look, I'm sorry." He reached out for Pietro's hand and gave it a tentative squeeze before dropping it with a heavy thud to the mattress.  
  
Pietro shoved Lance's right arm lightly in a brotherly, 'no hard feelings' kind of way. "Hey," he offered again to the silence. "You gonna tell me what made you cry yet?"  
  
"You know what it was," Lance muttered, almost sulkily. Pietro shook his head, his hair making a swishing noise against the pillow.  
  
"It wasn't about me. This thing opened up old wounds, I know it did. You said 'Have you ever lost anyone?', Lance." Pietro looked at him with concern, a facial expression that would have seemed alien to him on anybody else. "Lance, who did you lose?"  
  
"My mom," Lance said quietly, feeling that he might cry again. "She killed herself."  
  
Pietro's fingers intertwined with his. "Shit," he whispered.  
  
"When I was eight," Lance continued, as Pietro's other hand slid up to his temple and rubbed the side of his face soothingly. "I didn't know she was unhappy, she always seemed so cheerful with me. Pietro, what was your mom like?"  
  
Pietro began to twirl strands of Lance's hair around his fingers. "Never had one," he answered indifferently. "She died when we- I was born. Then I was brought up by my dad, and he's a bastard."  
  
"He didn't hit you?" Lance said, a protective glint in his eye. Pietro shook his head again. Swish-swish.  
  
"That would mean that he felt something about me."  
  
And then, Pietro sighed deeply and arched his back like a cat. Lance felt a thrill run through him.  
  
"Let's not talk about the past, it's bullshit," Pietro pleaded with his eyes closed. "It doesn't matter. It's not us anymore."  
  
"Okay," Lance said simply, and kissed Pietro gently. The noise echoed around them in an almost comical fashion. "We'll keep the past locked up, at least for now. If you ever want to, you can tell me but I don't give a fuck either ways. To be honest, I'm glad you don't wanna know everything about me. You're right. It doesn't matter."  
  
"Mmmm," was Pietro's eloquent response. "What about the future?" he asked after a while, disturbing the silence once again.  
  
"The future's all good," Lance said, his tone turning noticeably wistful. It only occurred to him after his speech that he had created a perfect, vomit- inducing sitcom moment. "All this anti-mutant stuff will have gone away and we won't have to work for no whackos like Mystique or Magneto. We'll have cool jobs- you and I, we'll be damn famous, yeah, and we'll have to wear shades everywhere we go and check into hotels under false names like Master Bates and Seaman Staines. Maybe we'll have an apartment or a little house down south, or maybe a place by the sea with the waves crashing against it and a roof that leaks when it rains. And we'll. get married one day, though I'll be screwed if I wear the dress. White looks good on you. Yeah, a white tux with a red rose in the buttonhole."  
  
Being a secretly sentimental boy, Pietro's lower lip trembled and he sniffed. Lance laughed softly and embraced him, muttering in his ear, "Man, we're sickening."  
  
"The best way to be," Pietro replied and relaxed into the familiar territory of Lance's chest.  
  
*  
  
In the middle of the night, just as the clouds burst and finally showered the streets with rain, two bodies writhed together and clawed at each other, utterly released from their tired minds. White knuckled hands gripped a sweaty, tan back and scrabbled to keep a hold on its owner. The two bodies moved as one, but the breath came more quickly and hitched every so often for the pale one. His pulse, pressed against the darker chest felt constant, like machine gun fire. His mind was torn between deeply pleasurable sensations and undeniable pain as the thrusts deepened and the world seemed to shake around him. The darker one was grunting and snarling, nipping at the pale one's flesh fervently amid hurried ILoveYous and It'sOkays. The dripping tendrils of his hair trickled to the pale one's shoulders and whipped at his back with every move they made. They moved faster and faster, harder, deeper, sharper, forceful, stronger, faster, faster, harderdeepersharperforcefulstrongerfasterfasterharde-  
  
"Je-e-Sus!" the dark one cried into the night, his body twitching and spasming with a mind of its own. The strange sensation caused the pale one to follow, tensing every muscle of his body, screwing up his face and letting it release with the absolute power, the absolute knowledge, the absolute bliss.  
  
"Ugh," Lance grunted as Pietro collapsed against his chest. He pulled out, frowning as a tiny wince graced the perfect features. Then they lay panting and exhausted, tangled in each other's arms and listening to the raindrops tapping on the glass of the window.  
  
"Love you," Lance mumbled into Pietro's hair. Half-lidded blue eyes stared up at him, struggling to stay open.  
  
"So you kept saying," Pietro replied, then took Lance's left hand and kissed it courteously. "But I like you saying it. Know why? Because I love you and all."  
  
"Aw," Lance said and pulled Pietro closer to him. There was no denying it, they were definitely closer now, 'bonded by body and soul' and all that spiritual crap that the speed demon secretly read about. It was unquestionable, remarkable, beautiful.  
  
"Did it hurt a lot?" Lance whispered in his ear and Pietro nodded, lips slightly brushing his collarbone.  
  
"I expected it, it's okay Lance. Anyway, it was damn good, too. I wanna do it again. Well," he paused thoughtfully, stroking the soft skin on Lance's inner arms. "Maybe a bit later, you've got to recover from my sex- godliness."  
  
"Damn right I have," grinned Lance, sharing a salty tasting, clumsy kiss.  
  
"I want to stay here forever," remarked Pietro after a slight pause. "Just holding you, naked, with the rain outside. It's safe."  
  
"Yuck," Lance replied, but he was only half serious. He knew exactly what Pietro meant. With him in his arms, he was complete, he was happy, he was whole.  
  
He had never known what it meant when people said they were Home before. Now he understood perfectly- they meant they'd found a place they felt secure, a place they could always return to and feel assured. It was funny, because he had always felt out of place. Wherever he was, he'd never quite felt he belonged, his shirts never matched the décor or his hair clashed or his accent was wrong. But here, things were different. His body matched Pietro's. They fit together well, so well that pulling apart felt somehow wrong. He felt like he never wanted to move out of the speed demon's arms, or the world would be too big and he'd get lost again. He liked where he was now, and a satisfied smile curled cat-like on his lips.  
  
He had finally found his home. 


	19. A wee note from moi

Aloha, lovely readers! It gives me great sadness to tell you that I may have to discontinue this fic. Why? Because I'm just not 'feeling it' anymore, I'm afraid. I've become more and wrapped up in my poetry (been published a few times.. hurrah!) and found that there is a much greater sense of accomplishment in it for me. Also, I am absolutely stuck in a rut with the plot for 'Release'.. I've tried a couple of times to write a new chapter, but it all seems boring and a bit tired. I must admit, even in posting the last chapter I was thinking about packing it all in- and yes, that's why I had Pietro and Lance consummate their relationship ie screw like nymphomaniac, drugged bunnies.. You never know, perhaps I'll be hit by the old muse someday and put up a new chapter. Stranger things have happened. So, whether this be goodbye or not, rest assured that I love you and that Lance and Pietro waltzed off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Keep the dream alive, tilt your chin to the stars and VIVE LA PIETRANCE! All my lurvin', Vamp. 


	20. Bad News

Looks like I'm back... And I'm happy to be! I don't know what you'll make of this- if it's crapola, just tell me, I won't be offended.  
  
Love you all lots!  
  
*  
  
"Pietro... Do you really, really want to go through with this?"  
  
Large blue eyes met Lance's gravely, watering a little. "I have to, Lance."  
  
"It's too big a risk...."  
  
"Risk? Risk my ass, I take risks every day- you know me, big fan of challenges!"  
  
"But Pietro-"  
  
"Lance!" Pietro hoisted his bag over his shoulder, at the same time giving his favourite earth-shaker a shrewd look. "I have to clear this up once and for all. I'm not dead. I was never dead; it was a bad joke that should've been cleared up ages ago. Whatever happens, they'll find out sooner or later. And yeah, they may be pissed but so what? I can take them."  
  
Lance let out a long sigh and passed a palm across his face, pushing back the over-long strands of hair that clouded his vision. "The school has a fucking memorial fountain for you, Pietro. Everyone is in mourning. Do you know what kind of a shock you're going to give everybody?"  
  
Pietro shrugged. "I'll see."  
  
"You'll see?" Lance grabbed Pietro's elbow and looked around shiftily, expecting that they were not alone in the indescribably nasty second floor gents' toilets of Bayville High. He continued in a laughable stage whisper. "Pietro, you can't just waltz back into normal life. You know that. Just... Think about how you're going to do this, okay? Be careful. Be safe. I know you told me to fuck off, but are you sure you don't want me to help you? Just think about it, it's not too late to make a proper plan."  
  
Pietro shook his head firmly, sticking out his pointed jaw like the archetypal Action Hero. Inside, he felt like a thick, wimpish, yellow blancmange but he wasn't going to show Lance that- no, yesterday night, he had become A Man. "I fight my own battles. Go on, Lance, get to Chemistry. You're late."  
  
But Lance was reluctant to leave, having become abnormally over-protective of the mere waif that was his boyfriend. Instead, he pulled Pietro into a warm hug and let his fingers run through that unique white hair, now almost concrete with gel.  
  
"Geroff," Pietro mumbled thickly into Lance's stubbly cheek. He shoved him gently away to arm's length. "Come on, Lance, I'm a big boy now-"  
  
As expected, Lance raised an eyebrow in what one can only decipher as a smutty manner. "I know you are," he chuckled, receiving a well-earned pinch on the bottom for his comment.  
  
"Get outta here," grinned Pietro, giving Lance a quick kiss. "Seriously. Go," he warned, disentangling himself from arms that were far too warm and tempting. "I can do this."  
  
With a rather goofy grin, a reluctant Lance walked to the door, not taking his eyes off Pietro. He stopped by the door and raised his hand in a feeble attempt at a wave, earning a playful salute in return. Then, without another word he was gone.  
  
And at this point, Pietro allowed his shoulders to droop, filling the room with a long sigh.  
  
"Shit," he whispered to his reflection in the repulsively dirty mirror. On closer inspection, the surface of the glass bore a suspicious pale yellow crust that didn't bear thinking about. "Shit," he repeated, letting the word drop satisfyingly off his tongue like treacle. "Shit, shit, shit, fuck, shit! How'll the great Maximoff get out of this one?"  
  
"I have a pretty good idea," hissed a phantom voice, making Pietro jump at least a couple of feet into the air. "Welcome back, Pyetro."  
  
"Fuck," Pietro told his reflection again as another face appeared in the dirt-encrusted mirror. "E-Evan?"  
  
"Yes, Evan," nodded the other boy, looking utterly incensed. His nostrils were flared in a manner that Pietro would have found hilarious if he wasn't currently scared out of all sanity. "And I think you have some explaining to do."  
  
"I could say the same for you," replied Pietro, struggling to compose himself. "What kind of freak hides in the second floor bathrooms? Jesus, nobody goes in here unless they want- unless- ohhh... Trying to get free head, were you, Spykey? "  
  
"Thanks, but no thanks," Evan retorted, folding his arms and surveying his rival with a twisted little smirk. "Back from the dead?"  
  
Pietro rolled his eyes. "Here's news for you, Daniels. I'll speak slowly, shall I? I. Was. Never. Dead. Get this straight: it was a joke! And if it wasn't for fucking gullible morons such as you, I would never have been 'dead' in the first place. Any idiot could have seen Lance and I were pissing around- but I forget, you're not just any idiot, are you? You're a special case. Very special."  
  
"Only a sick bastard like you could have even thought to joke about death!" exclaimed Evan, his voice raising a few decibels as he threw his arms out wide in the throes of an emotional outburst. "Get THIS straight, Pyetro- it wasn't funny. I bought you flowers, for fuck's sake!"  
  
"I should've known that rotting bunch of weeds came from you," sniffed Pietro, turning his back to Evan. The truth was, Evan played upon his conscience. He knew, of course, that the joke hadn't been funny. He'd known as soon as it began that he'd gone too far, but by then it was too late. Delaying putting it right by his own cowardice had obviously been a bad move, and for once, he thought that Evan Daniels had every right to be pissed off with him. However, there was no way he was going to show Evan these feelings, this weakness. The façade came back up with a vengeance, leaving Pietro with a trademark smirk and the perfect cocky swagger. "You know, for someone who's just discovered I'm alive, you don't seem very shocked." He gave a theatrical pout, lowering his eyelids at Evan. "I'm disappointed, Daniels."  
  
"BASTARD!" screeched Evan, and Pietro didn't need to look to see he was now armed with several lethal spikes. Evan ran at him from behind, shouting incoherently between heavy, ragged breaths. Pietro resisted the urge to call him a drama queen, feeling that such actions might make the hand that was now closing around his neck tighten a little and squeeze all the air out of him.  
  
"Even I thought you were better than that," whispered the human porcupine, his face dangerously close. A simple punch in the centre of the ribs caused Pietro to sink to the floor on his knees, weakened by lack of breath. Evan grabbed a fistful of white hair, pulling Pietro's head up to face him as he stared down his nose at the quivering speed demon on the floor. With Pietro supposedly kneeling in front of Evan's crotch, hands feverishly gripping at his hair it was fair to say they were in a rather compromising position to any onlookers.  
  
"You want to know why I wasn't shocked?" Evan hissed, and it was all Pietro could do to nod. He was beginning to wish he'd simply informed Jean or Xavier via telepathy of his existence rather than let himself get into a fix such as this. "Because every damn day, Maximoff, I was pretending you were still alive to keep myself sane. That's right! Man, I was going crazy- I heard your voice in my head... Everybody looked like you.... I swear, I could fucking smell you! And why, Pyetro? Why?"  
  
Pietro had to bite his lip very hard to stop from answering the obvious: "Because you're a raving lunatic, Daniels." He was also one stage of being terrified away from wetting himself, and that would have been rather humiliating to say the least.  
  
Luckily, Evan continued to rant, showering Pietro with angry spit. "Why should I care if you're dead or not? I mean I hate your guts. I really, truly, utterly HATE YOU!! I used to wish you were dead all the time- hell, I still do. So tell me why the hell it's fair that I should fall apart and go crazy when you're gone?"  
  
"Ah.... Er.... Hmm.... Ngherahhghah," Pietro had never felt such need for a witty comeback, and had certainly never been at a loss to find one before. Evan was making him feel entirely uncomfortable, and he was beginning to wish that big, strong caveman Lance had stayed to help him after all.  
  
"Would it help to say I was sorry?" Pietro tried weakly. Ooooh, those words would be painful but probably not half as painful as a foot long spike in a tender, precious area, he concluded.  
  
"It'd be a first," muttered Evan, releasing his hold a little. "I don't think you ever said those words to me before, even when you needed to."  
  
"I needed to?" Pietro felt his jaw drop. He could not believe what he was hearing. If Evan was referring to what he thought he was referring to, then it was he who deserved the apology! "Excuse me, Mr Spike-In-The-Ass, I was under the impression that that was all your fault!"  
  
Evan shook his head defiantly. "No way. It was yours."  
  
"Fuck you!" Pietro replied, finding the strength to escape from Evan's grasp and stand to his full height. "I didn't run off to join the X-Geeks. We could've made it together. You left me high and dry, Daniels."  
  
"No I didn't!" roared Evan, pointing a finger in Pietro's face. Pietro found himself faced with a very childish urge to bite it. "You framed me, man! I thought you were my friend!"  
  
With no suitable comeback, Pietro resorted to using Evan's words instead. "I thought YOU were MY friend!"  
  
"That doesn't even make sense," Evan said, folding his arms across his chest and giving a holier-than-thou smirk much akin to that of Scott Summers. "I didn't do anything to you and you know it. If you weren't such a self-pitying piece of shit you'd accept that."  
  
"YOU'RE WRONG!" screeched Pietro, no longer caring about seeming like a petty girl. "You let the cops take me away to jail! How is it justice to lock up a sixteen year old? How would YOU like to be behind bars? Jesus- all I did was steal from a few lockers, it wasn't like there was anything valuable in them! Why'd you have to grass on me? You know what I'm like! You can't lock me up- I'll go crazy! I did!"  
  
Evan yawned. "Whatever. You'd have done the same thing, you always were a little creep!"  
  
"Aaaaaaaargh!" With this, Pietro even surprised himself. Evan blinked at the outburst and then shrugged. "You don't get it, do you, Daniels? No you don't! This wound runs a little deeper, okay? You WERE my friend. You know shit about me that I've never told anybody else. Not even Lan-"  
  
"Lance," Evan spat out the name bitterly, his eyes narrowing with pure hatred. "How long have you been his fuck-toy?"  
  
"Pardon your French, Daniels," Pietro said, raising one eyebrow calmly.  
  
"He'll use you. He'll chew you up and spit you out like he did to Kitty. That fucker's got no heart."  
  
"And why do you care, Daniels? Surely he'll match my chilly interior?"  
  
"All he wants is sex-"  
  
"Jealous, Evan?"  
  
"Doesn't deserve-"  
  
"Let me tell you this, Spykey, Lance is a damn good lover."  
  
"I can-"  
  
"You can what?"  
  
"You can get the hell away from him, that's what."  
  
Evan's eyes widened and he jerked his head to the source of the voice.  
  
"Avalanche!" he cried.  
  
"PIETRO?!" Gasped another voice, and Scott Summers slipped into view from behind Lance.  
  
"Pietro?" repeated some six other voices, belonging to various assorted X- Men who appropriately looked as if they had just seen a ghost.  
  
"Lance!" shrieked Pietro, stepping a good few feet away from Evan.  
  
"Summers?"  
  
"Alvers... P- Pietro?"  
  
A pause, and then a puff of purple smoke.  
  
"Evan?"  
  
"Kurt-"  
  
"Lance...."  
  
"MAXIMOFF!"  
  
"STOP!" shouted Scott, waving his arms frantically in the air and squealing in a somewhat girlish manner. "We came up here because we heard shouting but- but- will somebody please tell us what the FUCK- pardon my French, younger recruits, forget I ever said that- will somebody please tell us what in god's name is going on here?"  
  
"Pietro's not dead," Evan said simply. "And he never was. It was all a (and I quote, Scott) 'joke'."  
  
Jean Grey made a loud squawk of disgust. Kurt shook his head sadly, every muscle in his face assuming an I'm-Very-Disappointed-In-You grimace. Kitty, who was still getting over the initial shock of seeing the dead walk again remained silent and fanned herself with a gaudily bejewelled hand.  
  
Scott's face simply fell.  
  
"And just when I thought you couldn't sink any lower...." His glasses glinted, his own way of showing a disappointed frown. "We should've known it was too good to be true. C'm'on team, looks like we'll have to tell the professor that Quicksilver's been reincarnated."  
  
"Yeah," spat Kurt distastefully. "As a jerk!"  
  
And snotty as ever, the team filtered out of the toilets muttering about 'bad taste' and 'insensitivity' with their noses high in the air. Evan stayed put, glaring at the pair of them with his chest heaving in fury under its rather appalling t-shirt.  
  
"You two deserve each other!" he hissed before turning on his heel and flouncing out to join his teammates. If he'd had longer hair, he would've made a point of flicking it.  
  
"Well," said Pietro after a moment's thought, turning to face Lance. "That didn't go too badly, did it?" 


	21. Acid burns

I am a naughty, naughty slacker. Slap my wrist if you want to.  
  
I apologise for Lance's boring retelling of the story later on- it felt necessary.  
  
And Kitty's an idiot!!!!!!  
  
Enjoy, and know that you are loved.  
  
*  
  
".... Good morning and welcome to another pant-wettingly exciting programme with our favourite Pen Friends. Today we have with us Dora Dismall, author of the best-seller 'Clouds on Olympos' and..."  
  
Lance leaned back into the sofa cushions, more than a little ashamed of what he was watching even in the knowledge that nobody else was in the house. The truth was, he had become somewhat addicted to literature programmes after the Brunhilde episode. He now knew seventeen novels from back to front, and all without having to read a single word. Who said television was useless?  
  
Pietro had inevitably got into considerable trouble after the whole 'I'm- Not-Dead' saga, and at that particular moment in time he was receiving a good telling off from Professor Baldilocks Xavier and the X-Deputation. Lance knew little of Todd and Fred's whereabouts but suspected it had something to do with the missing twenty dollars from his wallet.  
  
The thin, horsey-looking woman in grey pinstripe on the screen suddenly sat up very straight, looking like she might cry.  
  
"That's not true!" she cried at her warty, combover-sporting colleague. "That's a typical cynic's perspective. Now anyone who's ever been in love will tell you-"  
  
Here Lance found a smug smirk creeping around the corners of his mouth. He was quite certain he'd found it: Love. Pietro had done amazing things to him- beyond the physical sense of the phrase; he had made Lance see the world differently. Appreciate things for what they were, or sometimes what they weren't. It was doubtless he had become more thoughtful, more sensitive. Love had given him new eyes, and he couldn't imagine seeing the world as blurred and bland again as he had before Pietro. Life before Pietro was not a desirable thought, and life without was worse.  
  
"I'm in love!" he told the woman on TV earnestly, spreading his arms out wide and unwittingly knocking a can of beer on to Mystique's 'antique' bearskin. "I understand!"  
  
"I don't think you do," answered a quavering female voice that could not have come out of the television. It in fact belonged to a Miss Katherine Pryde, who had this time phased through the door and was standing in front of Lance looking like she was about to wet herself. Understandably shocked, Lance felt much the same.  
  
"K-K-K-Kitty!" Lance shrieked. His jaw met the floor and he could not help but point stupidly at her. He had regressed from the inspired romantic to Idiot-Caveman-Lance in a matter of seconds. Kitty always did have that effect on him, after all.  
  
"Like, we'd better talk," Kitty whispered whilst she poked at the puddle of beer on the rug with her big toe, her irritatingly cute nose scrunched up in disgust.  
  
"Talk?" Lance replied, looking through a curtain of hair. "Sure, why not? What about?" This was followed by an unstoppable nervous laugh that made his insides squirm in embarrassment. Although he didn't like her anymore, he didn't want Kitty thinking he was a mindless idiot. Because really, he wasn't- at least, he thought he wasn't.  
  
"Well, I know what you want to talk about- er, the sex thing I guess. Well, where do we start? Uh, you, me, park... The.. er, whole relationship thing. Hah."  
  
"You hurt me!" Kitty suddenly cried, making Lance look up in surprise. "You broke my heart, Lance Alvers," she said with a nauseating pout. It was then he noticed that she was wearing an oversized pink angora cardigan with a cat motif. She looked something like a sad, mouldy raspberry and he wondered how he could ever, ever have found her attractive. He could smell her sickening strawberry fragrance- it turned his stomach as he remembered the clumsy fumbling, the dreadful aftermath with Pietro...  
  
"You used me," she sniffed, her eyes become alarmingly wide as she tried not to cry in front of him. "You never wanted me to be your girlfriend. You just wanted a... a simple... a simple fuck!"  
  
Lance sighed, picking up the empty beer can and placing it on the table. Now that he thought of it, it was extremely rude for Kitty to barge into his home unwanted and uninvited. She could have at least rung the doorbell let alone using the door like any civilised person- he would never have dreamt of using his powers to break into somebody's house. Of course, if he did attempt that there would be no house left standing to break into...  
  
"I can't lie," he said simply, knowing that he could not. He saw nothing wrong with hurting Kitty's feelings; it was better for her to know the truth in the long run. "I was immensely sexually attracted to you. I used to be an idiot- I thought lust was all there was, couldn't tell the difference you know? I wanted you for sex. But... but that wasn't all.."  
  
"No," she said. "You, like, used me to see if you were, like, gay or not."  
  
"Er.... What?!" Absolutely dumbfounded, Lance could do little more than let his mouth hang open like a flabby-gilled trout. How on earth did Kitty know about his.. preference? He had been so careful not to tell anyone. Not that he was ashamed of it- of course he wasn't- was he? There was nothing wrong with being gay, if that was what he was; he just preferred to be gay in private.  
  
But then Lance remembered a visit from Summers not so long ago, shortly after Pietro's 'death'. All those flowers and Cyke's sick, holier-than-thou preaching- and hadn't he distinctly said, "Yes, we guessed that Pietro was your boyfriend"? How could he have forgotten that? Oh god, the X-Geeks really had something on him now. It was probably spreading round Bayville High right that second- 'Tough guy Lance Alvers takes it up the ass!'  
  
"I think I at least, like, deserve an explanation," Kitty continued, suddenly prissy. She took a seat on the sofa, crossing her legs almost impossibly neatly and glared at Lance in a 'just-try-and-defy-me' manner. Knowing when he was beaten, Lance crossed to the window and began to speak whilst staring out at the rain beating down outside.  
  
"Alright, Kitty, but I won't spare you the details. You want the story? You get it exactly how it was- and just for the record, I don't care if it upsets you. I dunno- maybe I am sorry; maybe I'm not. We'll see."  
  
He cleared his throat, casting his mind back to the start.  
  
"It started when Pietro was appointed carer for me by Mystique after I lost the power in my arms. I hated him at first.... He was- still is- an arrogant little shit at the best of times. Got kicks outta making me feel useless. It was so boring doing nothing all day too, I wasn't clever enough to read books or do creative stuff so I turned to the power of imagination. All well and good if you've got good things to dream about, but I was so primitive I didn't think much past food, sleep and sex. Jesus, I was so horny I was going mad. All I could think about was you- your tits, nipples, sex with you, you naked, that tight little uniform Baldy's got you wearing.... And you know what sent me over the edge? I COULDN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT! I couldn't just go and jack off- don't give me that look, all guys do it. Even Kurt. Well," he added, frowning at the thought of it. "Maybe not Kurt. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is I was dying for release in any shape or form. Now, Pietro and I had become pretty close whilst he'd been caring for me. We had to- he was dressing me, helping me walk, even spoon-fed me sometimes. Wouldn't Spyke-boy love that? You see Pietro's got a caring side. Fuck, he does. He's sensitive, kind, loyal, but too afraid to show any of that. He's like me. We've got to be tough in what we do- you're the X-Geeks, the spoilt little brats with perfect little lives, airy-fairy beliefs coming out of your ears. We're the Brotherhood: we've got reality. Life's been shit for us and it ain't getting much better. Well.... That's what I thought until I fell in love. I didn't want to, I didn't mean to but the minute I asked Pietro to bring me off- now that, I'm ashamed of- everything became different. I couldn't get him out of my head, but there was no way in hell I was going to sit back, stick my hands up and say 'I'M GAY!', or at least bi. You became my defence mechanism, every time I thought about Pietro I forced myself back into those sexual thoughts of you that were doing less and less for me each time. You see, I didn't just want a fuck anymore- I wanted something meaningful and Kitty, sorry babe but you'll never mean a thing to me. How could you? We're just two brainless kids."  
  
Kitty's mouth hung open in an almost tragically accurate demonstration of what a brainless kid might look like.  
  
"Like, how can you say that, Lance? We have so much in common."  
  
"Kitty, apart from the fact our I.Qs added together don't even reach 50 we'll never have a thing in common. Look at you in your.... Your fluffy pink thing, what the hell is that?"  
  
"I HATE YOU, LANCE ALVERS!" Kitty screeched, suddenly standing. Her face was turning a similar colour to her cardigan. "I gave up my virginity for you! Does that, like, count for nothing?"  
  
Getting bored, Lance drummed his fingers on the windowsill. "Yeah, it means you're more fucking stupid than I ever gave you credit for. Hell, I'm stupid for doing it too. I almost lost Pietro after he found out, he went-"  
  
"PEE-AY-TRO, PEE-AY-TRO, PEE-AY-TRO!" roared Kitty. "Let me tell you something Lance- he's playing you for a fool. He doesn't love you, he's, like, totally incapable of loving. He'll chew you up and spit you out, just like you did to me and then we'll see who's laughing. In fact..." Her face clouded and she trailed off as if she was just about to reveal something very, very bad and thought better of it. Lance stepped away from the window, suddenly concerned.  
  
"What?"  
  
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't."  
  
"Can't what?"  
  
"Lance, I promised I wouldn't."  
  
Lance felt a strange kind of panic bubbling up in his stomach. "Tell me."  
  
"I can't-"  
  
"Tell me!"  
  
"No, you couldn't handle it. It's better if I-"  
  
Now angry, Lance marched towards Kitty taking hold of both of her wrists. Reverting back to Primitive Thug Lance, he pinned her against the nearest wall and stared down at her with the ultimate menace in his eyes, breathing hot air down her neck. She squirmed, feeling vulnerable and afraid.  
  
"Tell me," he growled through gritted teeth.  
  
"Please don't hurt me!" she cried.  
  
"I won't," he whispered. "Not if you tell me what's going on."  
  
She narrowed her eyes. "Let me go first."  
  
He nodded, and released his grip but held the threatening glare. He wanted her to know that he was the one in control. He would win.  
  
"Okay," she said. "Though don't say I didn't warn you. Pee-ay-tro is not what you think he is. He's... He's cheating on you Lance. He's been with Rogue all along."  
  
"No," Lance said, shaking his head in disbelief though the words stung like acid. "He isn't."  
  
"Yes he is," Kitty told him, the corners of her mouth starting to curl up. "And if you don't believe me, tell me where he is now."  
  
"He's..." Lance paled in realisation as the words left his mouth. "He's at the Institute."  
  
Kitty nodded. "Uh-huh. I room with Rogue, Lance. I, like, hear them at it all the time. He never gets caught- he can run through the security system. Oh wait, you knew that didn't you?"  
  
Though his voice was trembling, Lance kept up his façade of strength. "Get out," he hissed. "Get the fuck out of my house."  
  
"You know it's true," she whispered venomously. "It all makes sense."  
  
"GET OUT!!" Lance screamed, and the floor began to shake. Kitty headed towards the front door and he followed, wanting the reassurance of knowing that she was gone.  
  
"What's wrong, Lance?" Kitty said, looking over her shoulder as he opened the door for her. "Can't handle the truth?"  
  
And she was gone. Lance slammed the door, taking deep breaths to control himself. Pietro couldn't... Pietro wouldn't... Would he? It couldn't all have been a sham. But then- where did he go when he left the house for long periods of time? Was it just his imagination, or did Pietro always come back looking guilty, their kisses and touches seeming like apologies? Oh god, was this the stem of Pietro's insecurities- his guilt over fucking that X-Bitch?  
  
"No," Lance whispered, feeling all the strength sap out of him. "It's a lie..."  
  
He sank down the doorframe to his knees with a heavy thud, defeated. His head fell into his hands and tears met them, running down his wrists in desolate rivers.  
  
"It's a lie." 


	22. Stupid Rain

Thanks for the reviews, lovies.  
  
As for the truth.... Well, you won't find out just yet. Heheh... I'm cruel.  
  
Keep reading!  
  
Mwah, mwah, darlings.  
  
*  
  
It felt like he had only been sitting there for a second, but Lance knew that at least three hours had passed. It had become dark and the streetlamps had come on. The children had stopped playing on the pavements long ago, and a cold wind blew in through the open door. Lance hadn't thought to shut it, in fact, he had thought of nothing else but Pietro.  
  
Where Was He?  
  
He wanted him to come home, he wanted him to come home now and... Then what? Would he confront him, scream at him, end it? He ran a hand over his salt- stiffened face, suddenly abnormally tired. He didn't have the emotional or physical strength to do any of those things. Besides, if he had just spent a good part of his evening sobbing his body dry over Pietro, it was quite obvious that he couldn't bear to lose him.  
  
Damn it, where was he?  
  
He needed to see him. Badly. Whatever the circumstances, he just needed proof that Pietro was still out there.  
  
Shit, what if Pietro had left him for Rogue?  
  
Frustrated, Lance ground his knuckles into the threadbare carpet. "Get home now," he whispered desperately. "Come on..."  
  
Everybody else was home. They hadn't even batted an eyelid at the sight of their dear leader in girlish floods of tears, just stepped over him and disappeared elsewhere.  
  
"Please," Lance begged the absent Pietro, almost hoping for Saint Jean Grey to intercept his message and pass it on via the telepathic network.  
  
"Pleasepleasepleaseplease. Come home."  
  
He swore under his breath. Scratched at an itch that wasn't there. Thought about getting up. Stood. Decided against it, slid back down the wall again. He counted under his breath, finding that he always lost it at twenty. He watched the clock. The hands simply did not move.  
  
Quarter past twelve. Quarter past twelve. Quarter past fucking twelve.  
  
What did Rogue have that he didn't? And how did they....? For God's sake, she wasn't meant to be able to touch anyone without them turning into zombies! It was too, too ironic. So ironic that it had to be true. Perhaps Pietro was passed out right that second. Fucking her would send him into a coma for a few hours, but it was obviously worth it. Maybe it turned him on.  
  
And to think that Rogue might be corrupting his unconscious little body...  
  
Lance fell into a restless and unsatisfied sleep, his mind filled with dark doubt.  
  
Not soon after he had fallen asleep, the sound of footsteps coming up the path shook him awake. His heart rose, then sank. Pietro was home as he had wanted, but now he had to face him. He could see Pietro's feet now. Any second now, he would be noticed. And then it would start.  
  
"Shit!" hissed Pietro as he half-tripped over Lance. Frowning in confusion, he realised what he had fallen over. "Lance? What the hell are you doing down there? And why's the door open?"  
  
He knelt down to Lance's level, cupping his chin in shockingly cold hands and staring into familiar brown eyes. "You okay?"  
  
Lance closed his eyes and flinched out of Pietro's touch. Those hands could have been all over her just seconds ago. It made him want to throw up.  
  
"Lance? Lance?" Pietro rose briefly to switch the lights on, then crouched down beside him, studying the unkempt boy closely. "You're a mess. Do you need a doctor? Has something bad happened? Can I get you anything? Where's Todd and Freddie? They okay? What's happened Lance? Lance, can you hear me? What's happened Lance? Why are you ignoring me? Have I done something? What's going on? Lance, you okay?"  
  
"STOP WITH THE FUCKING QUESTIONS!" Lance screamed, suddenly wanting to get away from Pietro. Seeing him was more painful than he could ever have imagined, and he was just too, too tired to deal with it.  
  
"Jeez," whistled Pietro. "I was just trying to show that I cared."  
  
"Whatever," whispered Lance, wrapping his arms around himself as a cold wind blew in. It annoyed him that Pietro got up without a word to close the door. He was obviously playing the caring, over-attentive boyfriend to compensate for his guilt.  
  
"Something's up, Lance," Pietro said, a slight tremour in his voice. "I'm scared."  
  
"So'm I." Lance shook his hair out of his eyes and wondered if he was going to cry again.  
  
"Tell me what's going on," urged Pietro. "Please. I love you."  
  
Lance couldn't stop himself. He wanted more than anything to confront Pietro, but he was afraid of the truth. Or terrified at the prospect of starting an argument. He didn't want it to end; he didn't ever want to be alone again.  
  
"I love you too," he sighed, feigning normality. "I'm okay, Piet.... Just had one of those days, you know?"  
  
One of those days when you find out your world is crashing to the ground and you know you have to do everything in your power to hold it together, even if it means living a lie.  
  
Lance shifted a little, inhaling Pietro's familiar scent. Living a lie: he could cope with that. If keeping Pietro meant having to share him, then he'd deal with it. It was better than not having him at all, wasn't it?  
  
Wasn't it?  
  
"Lance-"  
  
"Leave it, Piet. Just tell me we're okay."  
  
"Of course we are. Stupid question, when were we ever less than okay?"  
  
Lance could think of a more than a few examples.  
  
Thin white hands crawled around Lance's back, pulling him into an embrace that managed to be both soothing and electrifying.  
  
"If you knew how badly I wanted you today," Pietro murmured into his ear, soft lips brushing at the lobe. Lance shivered at the touch- Pietro's breath was just as cold as his hands. "Mmmmmm... While I was at the X- Institution for the criminally boring, all I could think about was you." He paused, beginning to lick Lance's ear gently and enjoying the way the boy squirmed in response. He could not have known how each of his touches reached Lance like a knife in the back; a stab to the heart. "Your body.... My body.... Together. Oh Lance... I need you to fuck my brains out. I want to scream, I want it to hurt. Your big cock in my-"  
  
He never finished his sentence. Forceful hands grabbed held of his collar and pushed him away, interrupting his erotic plea.  
  
"Stop it," Lance hissed, stiffening. Pietro recoiled in shock, a slight blush creeping into his cheeks.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You sound like a whore. That's not you- at least it didn't used to be. It's like you're pretending.... Compensating."  
  
"I was just trying to show you that I-"  
  
"Stop talking," Lance demanded and crushed his lips into Pietro's in a burning, possessive kiss. Talking to him hurt too much. Touching was infinitely better, it was easier to delude himself. For all he knew, that's what Pietro was doing right now as he responded to the kiss. Imagining that Lance was shorter, thinner, with a white streak in his hair... And female.  
  
"Yesss," whispered Pietro as his hands found Lance's waistband and fumbled impatiently with the buttons. Lance threw his head back and lost himself in Pietro's touch- it felt dirty and debauched, but he was desperate. Needed it.  
  
It didn't take long for him to come. Pietro gave expert head and he could never hold on for long, but now his senses were heightened and the orgasm was premature. It didn't even feel good. He'd expected the release to rid all his tensions and fears, to assure him of Pietro's love and instead he felt cheap. It had been a massive rush of transient emotion and semen, leaving him weak and shaken. As he came, he wanted to cry; cast back to their first encounter, when he had felt ashamed in front of Pietro.  
  
Exposed.  
  
Confused.  
  
Released.  
  
"Now tell me what's wrong," Pietro murmured into his stomach, pausing to kiss the navel. "I wanna know what's up with you."  
  
"I-"  
  
But before he could answer, Pietro swam out of focus and in Lance's eyes, morphed into Rogue. He cursed the vision before him silently, at a loss as to what to do. How could he trust him? How could he bear to be with Pietro, when Pietro was also with her? And why the fuck had Pietro betrayed him- wasn't he worth more than that?  
  
What was truth, and what was lies, Lance couldn't tell. So instead, he surrendered himself to a cold, miserable kiss that tasted of blood and sweat that gave way to a long night's fucking.  
  
He couldn't call it making love anymore. 


	23. Haven

Thank you for your beautiful reviews, as always. Sorry it's a short one. I still need to work some stuff out, you see...  
  
Hope this is at least satisfactory!

Pietro skimmed another stone lazily across the ocean, and sighed.  
  
The stone perforated the surface, then streamed off into a foamy jet far away from him. The process seemed so familiar now; he must have skimmed a thousand stones and he was bored, yes, but still not satisfied. What was it he was trying to achieve? He wasn't sure. Lately he had been feeling a desperate need for something, but since he couldn't identify what it was, it was near impossible to quench.  
  
The pebble in his hand felt so warm and smooth, perfectly fitted to his palm. Cupping it between two hands like a child in awe, he knelt down in the sand and inspected the small, grey stone. It was a shade of grey he had only seen once in his life before.... Only once, and probably never again.  
  
"Hello, pebble," Pietro whispered softly to the object in his hand, not in the least ashamed that he was talking to something inanimate. If truth were told, Pietro spoke to objects quite often and thought he was none the less sane for it. He saw it as a kind of "mental plumbing"- all his problems would be spilled out to those who could not respond, could not judge, could not hear and above all, could not think.  
  
"How are you?"  
  
Predictably, no response.  
  
"Oh, really?" Pietro asked, raising an eyebrow and cocking his head to one side.  
  
Now, whilst talking to inanimate objects could be forgiven, pretending that they responded and attempting to hold a conversation with them was perhaps less defensible.  
  
"Fucking stone," he muttered, suddenly no longer in the mood for talking. Flinging the offending object into the tide, he then sighed and stretched out in the sand. It slipped through his fingers.  
  
Slipped through his fingers.  
  
Were he and Lance falling apart?  
  
'Not that,' he told himself forcibly. 'We don't think about that.'  
  
The clouds were so beautiful. Thick, luscious, midnight blue masterpieces; on the verge of bursting- any second now. God, it needed to rain. For days the heat had been insatiable, clammy and humid. Sick somehow. Yes.... Pietro wanted rain.  
  
What was the last thing he said to Lance?  
  
'Don't fall into that trap, Speedy. Focus.'  
  
It couldn't have been "I love you". Those words hadn't been uttered between them for a long time now. And indeed, was it even true that they loved each other anymore? Lance had... changed, as Pietro always suspected he would. He'd become uncomfortable, hiding his words and gestures behind a none-too- convincing quarter-smile. His eyes were always sad; sad, and searching for something else. Several times he had seemed on the verge of asking something, confronting, or confessing, but good old Rocky always caught himself before speaking; clearing his throat and looking off into the distance, into a world in which Sex-God Speed Demons did not inhabit.  
  
And god forbid Pietro should ask Lance what was wrong. "Nothing," was the eternal reply. It had been muttered, hissed, whispered, shrugged and screamed.  
  
'Change the subject. Come on.'  
  
It was a classic case of "What Have I Done Wrong?', felt intensely by insecure lovers of the teenage species.  
  
Only.... Pietro had done something wrong. And he knew that.  
  
'Enough! Look, the sun's coming out! Gone again! There's a kiosk there, I'll have a drink. Lemonade! Refreshing!'  
  
He hadn't been... entirely straight with Lance.  
  
'La la la la la!'  
  
But how could he be? If Lance knew the truth, then everything would be lost. Yes, Lance said he was strong but Pietro knew better. The truth would prove too much for him and he'd run off- ah yes, perhaps into the arms of Shitty Pryde! She'd surely make it better, the poisonous little trollop.  
  
That familiar red balloon floated up, up, up into his thoughts. _We have to let go sometimes..._ But so soon? Was that fair, was that just? It wasn't even worth trying to hold on if it was going to end with him and Lance together but so apart. He'd rather be nowhere near Lance than have that swollen, pregnant silence hanging over them. Far better to sleep alone than lie rigid on his back, counting the intervals between Lance's feigned snores, knowing full well that those brown eyes were wide open too.  
  
"I'm losing you, Rocky," he whispered into the wind. "And you've already lost me."  
  
And then, feeling weak and defeated Pietro stood shakily, forcing his eyes to focus on the horizon. There was a future there, however faint it was. He could feel himself drifting towards it, and his legs slowly started to carry him to the sad haven of the Xavier Institute. 


	24. A Passing Blur

Thank you, Lavvy-dearest, I love you too!! A lot. All shall be revealed in this chapter...

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Seven minutes past five. Seven minutes, what the fuck was that? A stupid, insignificant little number, that was what. It was three whole minutes until a reasonable time like ten past. Two gargantuan minutes had crawled by since five past. And now it was stupid fucking seven minutes past.  
  
And Pietro had not come home.  
  
Again.  
  
Lance growled under his breath and buried his face deep into the sofa. It was obvious where Speedy was, obvious whom he was with. He was spending more and more time away these days, and Lance just lay at home waiting. He'd become so pathetic, and hated himself for it. He was letting Pietro use him like a doormat, walking all over him and then wiping the shit off his boots onto him when he was finished.  
  
Well.... Why?  
  
The thought was so sudden and so strong that it made Lance jump. Why indeed! He was doing it because he loved Pietro and couldn't bear to lose him.  
  
"Duh!" Lance told himself aloud, shaking his head at the ludicrous question.  
  
Or... Was it him that was being stupid? Did he deserve his own "Duh!", complete with hair-flick, eye-roll and surly teen charm? And, less importantly, did anybody actually say "Duh!" anymore?  
  
Surely, if he did love Pietro so much he'd fight for him? It didn't make sense for him to surrender his beautiful boyfriend to Rogue, of all people. To sit back implied that he didn't care. That he was willing to let Pietro slip through his fingers.  
  
"No!" Lance suddenly stood, catching himself in the mirror. He thrust his jaw forward, inhaling deeply through his nose in a melodramatic affirmation of newfound power. And just like those ladies on Oprah-or-whatever-it-was, he proclaimed, "I will NOT be a doormat!" several times to his reflection, blessing it for its beauty and inner-strength. Oh yes. He was woman, and Pietro would hear him roar.  
  
But something took place of Lance's confidence as he started the engine of the jeep. Rage bubbled up in the pit of his stomach, and screamed through his veins. As he began to drive towards the Xavier Institute, the roads and the trees and the sky ahead turned red. All he could see was Pietro and Rogue, PietroandRogue, Pietrogue... Together. All over each other- sticky, wet, writhing, pale, dirty, hot...  
  
Someone was damn well going to pay.  
  
He stopped the jeep with a sharp jerk just outside the gates. There was no need to cheat the security system, for they gaped wide open into those corrupt grounds. Students on the lawn stared, pointed as he stomped towards the house with eyes focussed only on the door and within. He trampled on daisies and lobelias, mowing down flowerbeds with his stride. His eyes stayed on the door. Was Pietro in there now, all post-coital and sweet, wrapped in her naked arms?  
  
No. There he was, running across the lawn now, trying to obstruct Lance's path. Clinging to his arm, wheedling. Lance wheeled round sharply, burning.  
  
"Where is she?" he hissed, grabbing Pietro's spindly shoulders. He could easily break him in half if he wanted to.  
  
Pietro's mouth fell open. "Where's who?"  
  
"Rogue, where is she, I'll tear her to fucking pieces!" snarled Lance, his eyes scanning the place madly. Spittle flew from his mouth like a rabid dog. "I'll kill her!"  
  
A strong hand gripped his shoulder. "Rocky, I'm going to have to escort you from the premises."  
  
"Fuck you!" he screamed in reply, but released Pietro from his grip and lowered his voice to a maddened whisper. "I know, Pietro. I know what you've been doing, oh god, I've known all along. I know about you and her and how you've been going here every damn day and screwing her and then coming back to her and screwing me and saying you love me.... I know."  
  
Pietro was shaking his head over and over. Logan looked on, puzzled but ready to step in.  
  
"Lance please- if you- I can- it's not- Lance! Just stop!" Pietro begged, as the diatribe continued. "Just listen to me."  
  
".... All that shit about hurting when I 'cheated on you' with Kitty... You turn around and do the same thing when we're actually committed and I let you do it because I love you."  
  
"But Lance-"  
  
"Just how..... Just how do you do it?"  
  
Pietro was momentarily stumped. "Do what?"  
  
"How do you fuck? How do you have sex with that freak without turning into a zombie every time?"  
  
Pietro had to give Lance credit for having the imagination to wonder about such things. And the audacity to ask. "I wouldn't know, having never fucked Rogue."  
  
"DON'T LIE!" Lance lunged for Pietro, meeting Logan's hefty torso halfway.  
  
"Calm down, kid," he muttered. "Just calm down."  
  
"Don't deny what you've done!" howled Lance from behind Logan. "Don't try and lie to me like you've been doing all along! Lies, lies, lies! Just let me see her and I'll fucking kill her, that bitch is going down! I'll kill her! I'll kill her, I'll-"  
  
"Lance-I-swear-to-you-now-I-have-never-even-looked-at-Rogue!"  
  
"Oh yeah? I'm meant to believe that? Lemme go, lemme find her and rip her to-"  
  
"Yes!" Pietro's desperate tones cut through the air. "Yes, I have lied to you! But not- NOT about Rogue! Please, Lance, hear me out. Come and sit under this tree. Just sit down here with me, and we'll talk. Sit down. I'll tell you everything."  
  
Lance eyed him dubiously, out of breath.  
  
"The truth. I promise."  
  
Hanging his dark head so Pietro couldn't see his face, Lance sat down. Pietro could feel dangerous, wild heat emanating from him.  
  
"Okay," Pietro breathed deeply. This was going to be very, very difficult. "You're right about one thing, I have been here all the time. But-" he interjected before Lance could, "I have not been seeing Rogue."  
  
"Who then?" Lance growled at the ground. "Some other X-Bitch?"  
  
"No!" cried Pietro, suddenly desperate again. His eyes glittered wildly and his tone dropped to a semi-whisper. "Lance- I've been seeing Doctor McCoy."  
  
"Doctor McCoy..." Lance's voice was mocking, cruel. Then it changed to his own, a little shakier than it had been. "Doctor McCoy?" A disbelieving, or worried laugh escaped him. "Why, you sick?"  
  
Pietro fiddled with the bottom of his shirt, and for the first time Lance noticed his hair was imperfect. It didn't hold like it used to. Now, when he hung his head white tendrils fell into his eyes. They were cast downwards now, not glittering.  
  
"A while ago ole Baldilocks sent me some psychic message asking me to see him," Pietro told the ground. Lance raised his head and turned his body towards the boy, afraid of what he might hear. He'd rather Pietro had been fucking Rogue than this possible nasty alternative.  
  
"Something weird came up on that big motherfuckin' computer of his regarding me," continued Pietro, making an effort not to stumble over his words. He sounded like this had been rehearsed many times. "I was.... Flickering or something, that's what he said. Big deal, I said, I was probably too fast for it to catch me." He laughed, a hollow sound that chilled Lance to the bone.  
  
"My mutation's screwing me over, Lance," he said simply, suddenly staring straight through him.  
  
"I don't understand," murmured Lance in reply, unconsciously tearing up blades of grass from the ground.  
  
Pietro sighed. "My mutation's not like yours. It's not like something you can turn on and off, as and when you want it. I am my mutation; I live in fast forward. Remember this?" He reached for Lance's hand and placed it to his chest, left of centre. "That pulse, which you said was more like a hum. My heart beats much faster than the average human's. My metabolism's sky- high. It's all a little crazy."  
  
Lance's hand drifted off his chest, and the dark haired boy folded his arms. He couldn't seem to meet Pietro's eyes.  
  
"Doctor McCoy's been running tests," Pietro went on, suddenly becoming distracted. "Christ! I didn't want to tell you this!" His hands, balled into fists, trembled for a second, then released. He was calm again. "He's been running tests, and it seems now, even I can't keep up with my body. Either I'm slowing down, or- or it's speeding up- some bastard dealt me a joker with this mutation because it's slowly-" his eyes met Lance's and let out another bitter, morbid laugh, "or not too slowly, killing me."  
  
"What? No! Please, tell me you are just fucking Rogue. I can take it. I'm sorry- I won't kill her. I'm sorry."  
  
"No, Lance, this is the truth. This is why I couldn't tell you, because you freak out. And you'll run away. This means it has to end. It's like a time bomb, waiting to go off. Someday I'm just going to fizzle out and god knows you don't want to be there when it happens, I know I fucking don't."  
  
Lance thought for a horrible second he might cry.  
  
"At the moment," Pietro said, after a moment's composure, "I'm okay. They've given me some drugs, which are stalling it. But... They're not gonna work forever. My body will eventually work against them like every other damn thing. Then... Who knows? Who knows...?" he repeated softly, as Lance furiously wiped his eyes with the back of a hand.  
  
"They can do something, though," Lance insisted. "They must be able to do something."  
  
Pietro nodded dumbly. "As we speak, they're searching for a cure. But it's a case of beat the clock, Lance. And the hell if I haven't won every race in my damn life."  
  
And suddenly, the grounds looked much, much larger to Lance. The house was a tiny speck in the distance, moving away gradually until all he could see was himself, Pietro, and this wide, wide space. 


	25. The Letter

Hello, hello, my reviewers and readers!  
  
Lavvy, my love, that was a blinding review. Thank you! And as for the Pietro/Dr. McCoy pairing... I'm a little tempted to write that. Pietrank, anyone? It could work.. Anyway, my dearie, I'm glad you like this ficcie so much... Don't worry, it won't be too sad.  
  
And Eddiechoselife- I loved your reviews. So long have I wanted to be called 'me hearty'!! Ah.... Pirate fantasies. Also glad you like it... I'm waiting for that cookie, however.  
  
I promise this chapter will be the last of the Lance angst for a while. I've put that poor laddie through hell. Actually, I'll try and make the next chapter angst-free. Balloons, cake, Cyclops voodoo- you name it!

...................................................................................................................................................

"Look, Avalanche, could you just-"  
  
"My name's Lance, ass-wad."  
  
Scott's lips thinned into a small worm of disapproval. Although Lance couldn't be sure, he made a good guess that behind those damn shades, Cyke was looking down his too-chiselled-to-be-true nose.  
  
"The fact is, Alvers, these are our grounds. And," he raised a hand like a smarmy politician in full flow, "if I may be so bold to say so, you have hardly made yourself welcome by running riot all over the place and screaming bloody murder. So kindly get up from under that tree and-"  
  
"Piss off?" Pietro offered, a sneer curling his lip.  
  
"Don't mind if you do, douche-bag!" Lance interjected, staring expectantly at Scott. The X-Bore merely blinked.  
  
"You've been sitting here for an hour," Scott went on, blowing a tendril of hair out of his eyes that had run amok from the others in his flustered state. The offending strand returned to its rightful home, and then fell back to where it was. Brushing it away with visible irritation, he folded his arms across his chest and tapped his foot in a theatrical display of waiting.  
  
Pietro seized this moment to take a good look at Lance. Since he'd made his confession, all Lance had done was sit and stare down at his folded hands. If Pietro tried to speak, Lance would wince as if the words were the most insulting things he had ever heard in his life. Perhaps he was trying not to cry. It was hard to tell- Lance had responded so dumbly, with such apathy that he wasn't sure what the boy was feeling.  
  
"Yes, that rather does happen when one gives one's boyfriend jaw-dropping, life-altering news," Pietro informed Scott, now joined by Jean who was whispering fiercely into his ear.  
  
The blood drained from Scott's face. Pietro knew Jean must have told him. In a deliciously morbid way, this made Pietro felt like dancing.  
  
"Now, if you don't mind, Lance and I will be leaving now. Goodbye, Scotty," Pietro crooned, waving at the dumbstruck X-Prick. "Let's hope this is the last time!"  
  
But as Pietro was rocking with laughter and gasping for breath, Lance felt like curling up into a ball and shutting the world out.  
  
"Would you just fucking speak, Lance?"  
  
"Can't," the boy muttered, staring fixedly ahead. "I'm watching the road."  
  
"Ooh yes, Lance, some invisible vehicle might hit us any time now. Or perhaps a transparent old lady is crossing right now- hell; maybe we've already run over an undetectable doggie!"  
  
Lance didn't even so much as smirk.  
  
"The road's empty," Pietro said forcefully, reaching out to cup Lance's cheek in his hand. He stiffened in response. "Pull over. Talk to me."  
  
Lance shook his head. "I can't."  
  
"Please."  
  
"Pietro, no! Not now."  
  
Blue eyes glittered desperately. "When, then?"  
  
"I dunno."  
  
They drove without a word for the rest of the journey. When they got out of the jeep, an even thicker silence descended between them. As they entered the house, Pietro felt his heart drop to the bottom of his stomach in regret. Why had he told Lance? Why? Now everything was as good as over.  
  
"Where've you been?" asked the whale-like form of Freddie from his usual post by the TV. "Todd was freakin' out."  
  
"Was not," hissed the amphibious one.  
  
Lance remained silent, still and staring at the floor. Pietro bit his lip and watched Lance like he might shatter into pieces at any second.  
  
Todd got up, looking shaky and pale. "Something's wrong, yo. You two are actin' funny. What's wrong? What's happened?"  
  
Pietro looked at Lance helplessly, but their eyes didn't meet. He would have to tell them all now. After all, the Brotherhood was all he had. They had a right to know he was liable to keel over and die at any given second.  
  
"Sit down, you two," Pietro sighed, referring to Fred's supine form more for politeness than anything. Todd drew in a hesitant breath. Lance hung his head and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking sullen and withdrawn.  
  
"I've been away a lot lately," started Pietro, suddenly aware of how loudly the old grandfather clock was ticking. "I've been visiting the X-Institute. Baldy picked up some weird shit from me on Cerebro and called me in for.... Y'know. Tests."  
  
Todd was already looking beside himself. He hated bad news, and often found the build-up worse than the actual news itself. Freddie simply looked on, piggy face giving away no hint of understanding or response.  
  
"So Doctor McCoy did lots of tests, examinations, that kinda stuff. You know bloods, swabs, he had me on a treadmill..." Pietro trailed off. He was drawing this out deliberately and wasn't sure he could do it now. Lance shook his head and slowly left the room, not even stopping to look back.  
  
Without Lance, Pietro felt even weaker. Abandoned.  
  
"You're.... You're not?" Todd asked twitchily, his lower lip trembling slightly. Freddie leaned forward in his chair with an almighty creak.  
  
Pietro's eyes closed for a second as he composed himself. "If you mean dying, Todd, then yes, I damn well could be."  
  
"No," Todd shook his head. "No, this is another fuckin' joke, it's not true. Piet... Tell me this is a joke. I won't get mad. I won't freak. Please, yo, say it's a joke....?"  
  
"It's not a joke."  
  
Todd was already crying. And as Pietro began to explain himself, the Toad's sobs became more and more increased until they were practically howls. Pietro couldn't help but become angry at the boy- after all, he wasn't dying yet. Jesus, for all anyone knew he might not be dying at all. A cure was probably on its way right now!  
  
"FOR FUCK'S SAKE, TODD! How 'bout some support, huh?"  
  
Life had always gone Pietro Maximoff's way, after all.  
  
Hadn't it?

............................................................

In the kitchen, Lance took a deep breath and opened the envelope he'd long kept closed.  
  
Was it selfish to be thinking of himself after Pietro's horrible confession? Or was this just a way of putting off facing the truth? Since Pietro had told him, he'd felt.... Numb. Couldn't cry, couldn't be angry. To be honest, it was near impossible to imagine a life without him- not that he could bring himself to try. Not yet, not when there was still hope.  
  
They could find a cure tomorrow.  
  
And Summers would join a metal band called Satan's Cum, Lance smirked to himself. Despite the sad situation, he couldn't help feeling rather satisfied with that one.  
  
The minute Pietro mentioned he might die, Lance had thought of his mother. He tried to remember how it had felt to lose her, but he had been too young or too traumatised to recall the emotions accurately. This made him afraid. Suppose he did lose Pietro- how would that feel? If he prepared himself, he was sure that would make it easier to cope. He knew there would be sadness and tears, remembering his mother still brought that about occasionally. But that wouldn't be all, would it? What about the emptiness, loneliness, anger, regret, bitterness, constant pain?  
  
And that was about the moment Lance realised that he couldn't cope with a possible loss until he buried something from his own past. Which is how he came to be holding an envelope he last opened three years ago. He had almost thrown it away, but a gut feeling had told him to keep it. So, for three years, said envelope had been kept under his mattress between a particularly stagnant pair of boxers and a copy of 'Hott Chix' and shoved to the back of his mind. But now, the name 'Michael Alvers' flashed persuasively from the sickly brown paper, and Lance made his decision.  
  
He would tell Daddy everything he had wanted to say since he went into care.  
  
It hadn't been a long drive. Michael Alvers lived under an hour away, in a sleepy little cul de sac called Moorside. Lance didn't think he had ever seen such a dull, dead place. Even the trees in Moorside looked tired, like they couldn't stand quite upright. All the gardens were too neat, all the flowers too perfect to be real.  
  
There didn't seem to be a single person in Moorside.  
  
As Lance pulled up at number 18, a sudden fear gripped him that Michael wouldn't live there anymore. Then what?  
  
No. That wouldn't happen. Daddy wasn't the moving type. Michael Alvers was the kind of man who detested change. He probably hadn't even changed jobs. Lance suspected he would even have the same boring, rigid haircut. That moustache, so impeccably trimmed. And oh god, the perfectly polished brown leather shoes with the briefcase to match...  
  
Lance had expected to be afraid, or regretful. It was easy, however, to take those few steps to the door and ring the bell. Any nervousness faded away, replaced by a building sense of rage at the man who had ruined two lives.  
  
He could see a dark shape through the frosted glass, and prepared himself. What would he say first? The door clicked open, and he took a deep breath, faced with the unmistakeable shape of....  
  
A teenage girl. Maybe Todd's age, with long dark hair in plaits.  
  
"Yeah?" she asked, shooing a golden retriever back into the house with her foot.  
  
Momentarily thrown, Lance just stared. Who on earth was this kid, and what was she doing in his Daddy's house? He cleared his throat, with the tiniest hint of a glare in her direction.  
  
"Does Michael Alvers live here?"  
  
She gave him a suspicious look. A woman in the background called for Molly- that must've been the girl's name. Molly sighed and opened the catch on the door.  
  
"I'll get him for you," she told Lance. Then, without moving or even turning her head, she monotonously shouted a male name that made Lance's blood run cold.  
  
"DAD!"  
  
An all-too familiar voice called back. "Coming!"  
  
Lance thought this rather an inappropriate time for a panic-attack, but his lungs seemed to think otherwise. Banging on his chest with a fist to make his breath come, Lance listened to the slowly advancing slippered footsteps.  
  
And then, there he was.  
  
Man to man, they simply stared for a few seconds.  
  
"Shit," Michael breathed, taking in the boy that stood before him. "Can it be...?"  
  
"Dad," Lance confirmed, noticing the changes, though they were minor. Michael's hair had thinned a little, and was greying at the sides. He was still an attractive man, and had kept his figure through a meticulous exercise regime. The large brown eyes, identical to Lance's, were now lined and seemed to droop at the sides, giving the man a look of perpetual sadness. Good, Lance thought. He deserved to be sad.  
  
"Come in, Lance," nodded the man. Lance noticed how the power had gone in his voice. It was softer now, almost feeble. "No doubt we have a lot to catch up on. I'll get you some tea- you want some tea? Or a beer- you old enough to drink beer?"  
  
"Er," was all Lance could reply as he was placed into a brown leather armchair. He took in the surroundings of a family home, hating that there were no hints of himself or his mother. Daddy had moved on, erased him.  
  
"That's Georgie," Michael replied, returning with two bottles of beer. He pointed to a blonde woman in the biggest family portrait. "We married a couple of years after you... Well, you know. This here's Molly," he said, pointing to the dark-haired girl who had answered the door. Lance got the impression that Molly hated her father from the sullen half-smile she gave in the portrait as his big paw clasped her shoulder, and decided he liked her a little more. "And the boy? That's Simon. He's ten now."  
  
Ugh, Lance thought, hating Simon already. He looked as perfect as Daddy did.  
  
"I bet they'd like to get to know their half-brother," Lance muttered bitterly, unable to help himself. "Or don't they know?"  
  
Michael let out a long sigh, running his hands through his hair. They trembled a little.  
  
"Lance, you had to go into care. You know that I couldn't look after you, I had my work."  
  
"You had your work," Lance jeered.  
  
"Let's not make this difficult."  
  
"I'm sorry, did you think this would be easy?" Lance slammed his beer down on the table, staring straight into his father's eyes. "Why'd you do it?"  
  
Michael blinked, then sat straight upright as he heard footprints coming down the stairs. He breathed a sigh of relief as they passed, and Lance realised he was obviously ashamed of his secret son. "Do what?"  
  
"Everything," replied Lance. "Where do I start? Why didn't let Mom have any freedom, why couldn't you let her sing? Why didn't you let her be happy? You know how lonely she was?"  
  
Lance watched his father stiffen. "I don't want to talk about your Mom."  
  
"Because you killed her!" shouted Lance. Michael shushed him desperately. "It was you, you fucking lunatic- that's why she killed herself! You controlled her and stopped her from doing everything she loved. You denied her a life. You killed my mother!" he screamed, not caring if he was losing it. He wanted Georgie, Molly and stupid fucking Simon to hear this. They ought to know what a bastard Michael Alvers was.  
  
But Michael didn't seem to care if they heard either anymore. "Don't you think I know that?" he bellowed, grabbing his hair in frustration. "Do you really think a day goes by when I don't regret it? I loved Patricia, I was just so damn scared of losing her. She was so beautiful, Lance fucked up my life, Lance. You don't forget that, you don't move on! For fuck's sake..... If I let her go into showbiz, they'd've been all over her. She'd've thought twice about a life with plain ole me. And she was a mom, for god's sake! What kind of life would you have with a mother always away, huh? When Pat had you, I made her promise to let her dreams go." He turned to face his son. "We both had to make sacrifices for you."  
  
"What, so it's my fault?"  
  
"No! Yes! Maybe. God, son, who can say?"  
  
Lance sighed deeply, covering his face. "You're pathetic," he mumbled.  
  
"She never told me I was hurting her," Michael continued. Lance got the impression he wasn't even speaking to him anymore. "How was I supposed to know she was unhappy? Your mom was so good at hiding it. Just why.... If she'd told me.... Fuck, if I'd just realised what I was doing to her! I thought it was for the best, I really honestly did. It never crossed my mind that she hated her life." He paused, concealing a sob with a sniff. Michael Alvers had always been a tough man. "I was never there for her. And yes, I know, I was never there for you either. I thought sending money and presents was enough; I kept you sweet on the dough I earned. I'm just so sorry now. I fucked up. I fucked up, and I've gotta live with it now."  
  
Having heard enough, Lance asked the question that had been burning on his lips ever since he'd arrived. "How did you feel? How did you feel when Mom died?"  
  
Michael turned and looked right at his son, anguish evident in those sad eyes. "When I found her on that sofa, I knew right away it was my fault. I knew she would die, and I would have to live with the fact that I had killed a woman. A beautiful, free-spirited freak like her! And then.... When she did die, I felt numb. Cold. Like nothing mattered. You know, that's the worst feeling in the world. You ever felt like that?"  
  
Lance nodded sadly, understanding. Wasn't that exactly how he'd been feeling at the thought of Pietro dying?  
  
"That feeling goes eventually," his father murmured, looking lost in himself. "And you cry. You cry continuously like a baby, your body hurts and there's nothing... Nothing that can fill the gap this person left behind. And the guilt... Oh jesus, I couldn't live with myself. Every time I saw you, Lance, I saw her and I knew I was a fucking murderer. I was an unfit parent, started taking it out on you. That's why you had to go into care- I'd'a gone crazy and done something bad."  
  
"But," Lance whispered, staring at the floor. "You got over it. You forgot me, you built a new life."  
  
"I had to! Lance, please, try and understand."  
  
Lance shook his head. "I can't. It hurts."  
  
"I had to let go of you and your mom!"  
  
"You should never let go!"  
  
"You wouldn't understand...."  
  
"Didn't you care?"  
  
Michael's eyes widened. "Of course I did. Lance, son, I-"  
  
Words failed Michael Alvers, and slowly, he padded along to the chair where his son sat. Tentatively, he pulled the boy into his arms- something he wasn't sure he'd done since Lance was an infant. He was surprised how someone so angry and full of hate as his son was could be broken by a single touch. The boy cried silently into his shoulder, crying for a sad and irresolvable past.  
  
Eventually, Lance became embarrassed and pulled away. Feeling that his demons had been cast aside, he stood and awkwardly shook his father's hand.  
  
"Er, thanks, Dad. I needed to know that shit."  
  
"Glad I could get it off my chest."  
  
"Can I..." Lance paused hesitantly. "Can I come and see you again?"  
  
Michael squirmed uneasily. He could hear his family's voices, knew they were questioning who the boy was. "Ah, son, you see, the thing is-"  
  
He cleared his throat and looked helplessly at Lance. The boy looked so hopeful.  
  
"Lance, that wouldn't be a very good idea. I don't think we should keep in touch."  
  
"What?" Lance's face fell. Had this meant nothing to his father? No... Michael had just been using him to vent his emotions! He hadn't wanted to be a father in the past and he didn't now! Even when his first son had driven miles to see him after ten years, he wasn't interested.  
  
Daddy didn't care.  
  
"I'm glad you're okay, though," Michael nodded, becoming more and more aware of the voices in the house. They were his life now, this boy was a relic of a painful past. "Have a good life, son, be careful. All the best."  
  
"No!" Lance fought back angry tears. "Don't do this again, don't shut me out!"  
  
"I'm sorry, Lance," Michael shook his head. "I have to."  
  
The door slammed shut in Lance's face, and he realised that this was an almost identical echo of the last time his father had closed the door on him.  
  
There, in the shitty little village of Moorside, on his father's bleak doorstep, faced with the prospect of a dying boyfriend, Lance had never felt so utterly alone. 


	26. Fathoming Fatherfigures

Reviewers, readers, I love you all!! Addictedtofanfics, your message really made me smile... I'm glad you have grown to like this fic and hope it continues to please you!

Happy reading...

XxX

Sprawled across a sleep-ruffled bed, Pietro ran a hand over his tired face.

What a thoroughly shit day....

He had been rumbled. Lance knew. Todd knew. Even Freddie fucking knew, and that was saying something. Freddie- the very boy who thought 'el-em-en' was a single letter in the alphabet! And were his brothers understanding, sympathetic? Hell no!

Todd was probably still crying, though the hysterics would have passed by now. Pietro couldn't think of a way Todd could have been less supportive, save being made to lie in a ready-made coffin and wait patiently for the nice Grim Reaper to come along. Todd had basically condemned him to an early death- if a cure was discovered tomorrow and Pietro survived he suspected the Amphibian would be highly disappointed. He knew that right that second, Todd would be mentally preparing himself for loss. Reading books and magazines. Scouring the TV for morbid programmes, anything that would teach him how to cope. How terribly selfish it would be for Pietro to survive after all that effort!

And Freddie? Not a word had passed his lips since Pietro's news. He simply sat there; frown puckering that immense space between his eyes. This was not Freddie's usual blissfully vacuous state- he looked troubled, and when his lips moved occasionally in that semi-trance he was trying to make sense of it all. It took something really serious for Fred to get his grey matter working.... This too was ominous.

Pietro didn't even want to think about Lance. He'd disappeared- he probably wouldn't come back either. Who would he go to for comfort? Shitty Pryde, of course! Pryde, the fucker. Fuckeress. Fuckling. Fuckerella.

"Fucking-fucking Kitty Pryde!" growled Pietro, throwing a glass from his bedside table at the door only to find that-

The door opened. It was Lance- shocked; the boy dodged the glass by a mere inch and then stood staring at its shattered remains as he held onto his head protectively.

"What the-"

"I didn't think you were coming back," Pietro stuttered nervously.

"Had to sort out some shit of my own before I could deal with this- you okay, Piet?"

The boy grunted in response and hung off the edge of his bed upside down. It was everybody else that had a problem, not him. He was invincible.

"You look really weird from this angle," he murmured, squinting up at Lance.

"Mmm," Lance half-smiled distractedly, stuck in some other thought.

"Where were you?"

Nothing.

"Lance, where'd you go?"

One, two, three, four, five, six-

"Where were you?"

Tick tock, tick tock.

"LANCE! LANCE, WHERE WERE YOU TONIGHT?"

"Huh?"

Pietro shrieked in exasperation, upside down face turning beetroot from the blood-rush.

Then, a silence.

A large weight sank into the bed as Lance climbed on, fully clothed. Feeling that he might throw up if he stayed any longer, Pietro picked himself up and lay beside the brown-haired boy, listening to his breathing.

"Lance?"

The boy in question turned his head and the pillow rustled, blinking at Pietro through sleepy eyes. "Yeah?"

Pietro's voice came feebly, like a frightened child. "Have you written me off too?"

"Have I-?" Lance frowned, and then his eyes widened in full recognition. Something seemed to gleam, to burn in them and he sat up suddenly, pulling the smaller body into his lap.

When he spoke, he spoke soothingly. "No! No no no- Pietro, nobody's written you off. You're still with us, you're still here, and we still love you. Nothing will change that."

"If I die?"

Lance smoothed an unruly white tendril and lifted it, kissing that hot little forehead. "It might not happen."

"It might! Lance, I don't have any control over this, I don't have the power to-"

"Shush. We'll carry on as normal- we can't waste time moping in case-" Lance choked on his words, and swallowed. "We can't waste time moping in case it does happen. You want the rest of your life to be fun, don't you?"

Pietro nodded earnestly- Lance understood! Cue the Hallelujah Chorus!

"And if they find a cure," Lance whispered, trailing tiny kisses along Pietro's temple, "which we have to believe they will," straying to Pietro's neck, "you can get better and we'll forget all about this. Sound good?"

"Mmm," Pietro purred. "Damn good. Can I ask what's made you so strong and.. well.... UnLance-like?"

A faltering "Hmmm" was his response as Lance slipped deep into thought for a few seconds.

"I went back," he mumbled, staring out into a world beyond the bedroom. "I went back to see my birth father."

Pietro sucked the air in through his teeth. "Old wounds."

"I was hoping to close 'em."

"Did it work?"

Lance yawned. "Kinda. Sorta. I dunno."

"Was it weird?"

"Definitely! It's so strange walking back into an old life to find there's...." Lance bit down on his lower lip thoughtfully, "to find there's no place for you."

He watched a wasp fly repeatedly into the windowpane.

"My dad had remarried. Had a new bunch of kids, like me and my mother were nothing. The real insult? The house was exactly the fucking same as it was when I last saw it. He hadn't even replaced the couch my mom died on! And they were there... His wife and those three damn kids of his, sitting on that couch knowing nothing about it. Yeah," Lance added, eyes narrowing. "He never told them about us."

No reply came from Pietro, who watched him intently. This made Lance feel slightly uneasy, like those blue, blue eyes were judging every utterance.

"I suppose I wanted to go," muttered Lance weakly, "because I had to know what it might feel like to lose you. I thought dad would have a pretty good idea after.... Well, you know. He mentioned a pain that never goes away, explained how he'd never stopped loving or thinking about her. You can create a new life- build new foundations, let it stand on a new set of faces, but you can't forget what you once had or once were. It's impossible."

He paused for a long, contemplative breath. "The pain was still raw. He genuinely felt bad after driving her to suicide- I never imagined I could see him so weak. It got me thinking how strong I would have to be, for you and for me. I mean- what do we hate more than anything?"

Pietro's lip curled teasingly. "Mushrooms?"

"WIMPS! We hate weakness, we hate subservience. Four syllables, Pietro, count 'em! It took all the strength I had to build up my vocab, to start reading and learning but I did it. I'm halfway through Nineteen-Eighty-Four, and if I can do that then I can do anything!"

"So you're saying that you refuse to fall to pieces?"

"I'll do everything I can not to."

"Ooh, big man."

"Pietro, I'm serious about this. Back me up here, you have to be strong too."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll start eating my spinach."

"PIETRO!"

The boy in question sighed and sat up, smoothing his hair back into place. "Lance, I think you're amazing. The strength you've shown is... Phenomenal. Did you know that one?" he asked, raising a sly eyebrow. Lance shook his head, making a mental note to consult the dictionary later.

"Anyway, it really helps me. I feel like I can get through this now, whatever the outcome. I love you obscenely and insanely."

They shared a deep, heart-swelling kiss and lay silent for about a minute.

"He hugged me," Lance suddenly said, as if they had never stopped talking about Michael Alvers. "It felt good... For a while I thought he'd accepted me again but it was just an outlet for his guilt. I guess he was laying some shit to rest too. He practically slammed the door in my face," a sigh, "I don't think we'll ever see each other again."

"The bastard!" Pietro hissed.

"I do feel better now though," the dark-haired boy said, entangling his fingers with Pietro's. "I got a lot of answers I needed to move on.... I suppose I could almost forgive him. Almost," he added after a moment's hesitation.

"That's good.... 's'all good." Pietro stifled a yawn, looking at his watch. "Y'know, fathers aren't worth it, Lance." He grinned sleepily, spreading his arms wide. "We'll be each other's dads!"

"No thanks," replied Lance, giving a comic grimace at the implication of incest. Then his tone changed, and he leaned forward on one elbow looking into the cut-glass eyes. "You never talk about your dad, Piet."

"There's..... There's nothing to talk about, Lance."

"Is he dead?"

"No! Look, Lance, it's actually quite dangerous to talk about-"

Brown eyes glittered excitedly. "Why? Is he a bad guy?"

A sharp intake of breath. "More than you could ever imagine."

"Woah... Still, at least you're not _Wagner_. It's not like your mom's _Mystique_."

Lance chuckled, but a tense silence hung about Pietro still. Stopping immediately, the dark-haired boy took a hesitant look into that stony face. To see the blood drain from Pietro's cheeks was not the reaction he had expected or intended.

"Try having Magneto for a dad," was Pietro's hushed response, deadly serious.

There was a three-second silence that felt like an eternity, and then, shocked to the bone, Lance fell off the bed pulling the covers with him.


	27. Kitchen Confessional

Sorry it's been such a long time- smack my bottom, give me a sharp tap on the knuckles or however else you see fit. As always, I have plenty of love for reviewers- Lyra, thank you for continuing with this despite English not being your first language. That made me so so thrilled!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. Happy hallowe'en if you celebrate it, or happy end of October and belated November to all!

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The kettle bounced vigorously three times, clicked, and began to vent thick steam. Pietro simply stared at it, no longer fancying a coffee. In the doorway stood Todd with his lip trembling and eyes like saucers, clearly expecting Pietro to keel over in the next few seconds.

"Whaddaya want, Toady?" mumbled Pietro, anxious and irritable. Had he possessed the lungpower, let alone the money to take up the habit, he would have had a cigarette dangling from his lips like the perfect cinematic vexed hero. He would have smoked and smoked and smoked in that five minutes since he had let his secret slip. Never mind telling his nearest and dearest that he was liable to fall over dead any second now, it was letting the true identity of his father slip that had petrified him.

"Are you....?"

"Yes, Todd, I'm fine. Fine, fine. Lance and I have decided we've got to act normal. Positive. Like nothing's wrong. It's fine."

Todd began a series of baby steps to join Pietro, or baby hops to be more precise. All the while he watched his friend from the corner of his eye, breath sharply drawn. "If that's what you want, yo. Yeah... I mean, it might all go okay. We gotta act like it will be anyways. Where's Lance?"

Pietro sighed. "Upstairs, gathering some thoughts. Actually scratch that, he's probably jumped out of the window and is halfway to fucking China by now."

Todd raised an eyebrow. "China? He's not you."

"Okay," Pietro smiled slightly. "He might've gone a block or two, if he can catch up with the _snails_ that is."

The strange musky dampness of _Eau de Todd _filled Pietro's nostrils as the owner of the scent perched himself on the worktop. "Did he freak out, yo?"

"He freaked out alright. Just not about... You know. Other stuff."

"Other stuff?" Todd's eyes became wide and his chin slowly started to quiver. "There's something else wrong with you, Piet?"

Pietro reached out and patted him on the head, not understanding fully the reason for his gesture. Todd was just... Adorable sometimes. In a smelly, unwanted puppy kind of way. "Don't you worry your slimy little head, Toddster."

A subtle cough indicated another presence, and the boys turned their heads to see a rather baffled looking Lance. "Hey."

"Hey."

"So, um...."

"Yeah."

Todd's eyes darted between the pair of them during this vague exchange. It was rather like he was watching an excruciatingly dull tennis match played by one-armed geriatrics.

"I shouldn't've-" Pietro began suddenly, only to be cut off directly by Lance.

"No, it's fine. But you need to-"

"I feel like I should explain." Pietro sat down at the table, jerking his head in the direction of the chair beside him. "Lance, sit down. Todd, sit down. FRED GET YOUR ASS IN HERE AND SIT THE HELL DOWN! FRED!"

The boys really had no choice but to sit down. There was no arguing with Pietro when he came over all authoritarian, that was where the similarities between he and his father lay.

"Whut?" Fred asked, bleary-eyed as he parked his colossal backside into a spindly chair next to Todd.

"Okay," Pietro took a deep breath, peering into the three faces before him. "I've been thinking about coming clean for a long time now. I've told you that I'm sick, but there's something else... Something big that I've always kept from you before. Lance knows, because I've just been a complete ass and told him but I'd better explain myself. Here goes-"

Todd whimpered.

"The thing is, I might not be who you think I am. I've always said I was an orphan. Well, I'm not."

Pietro looked to Lance for support, but the boy in question was staring at his nails looking like he was trying not to throw up.

"My mother is dead, she died giving birth to u-" Pietro caught himself just in time. "She died giving birth to _me._ But my dad is still alive, and I'm still in contact with him, and...."

But god, how on Earth would you phrase it? "And he's that big nasty super villain with a bucket on his head"? How would they ever understand?

"Look, what I'm trying to say is... It's... My dad, he's... Oh fuck it, fuck it. You know. My dad is... He's... Shit shit shit!"

Lance cleared his throat. "His dad is Magneto."

They were met by blank, blank faces.

"Really," Pietro nodded. "It's not a joke this time."

Silence.

"It's true."

Blink.

"You don't believe me, do you? Todd? Fred?"

"Magneto?!" Todd shrieked, voice rising to soprano. "Jee-sus, yo! You kept that one quiet!"

"Well, what the hell was I supposed to do?"

Fred spluttered. "I dunno... I think I'm having a heart attack."

Despite the situation, Lance rolled his eyes. They'd been there too many times before. Six times now they had taken Fred to the hospital, and six times they had diagnosed him with a mere touch of heartburn.

"I know it's a lot to take in-" Pietro began, as Todd scrutinised him through narrowed eye.

"Not when you think about it, yo. I mean, you do kinda look like him."

A small, smug grin tugged on the corners of Pietro's mouth. "Well, I suppose that superb jaw line, aquiline nose and those chiselled cheekbones had to come from somewhere. Not to mention those cerulean eyes.."

"Actually," Todd intervened, knowing full well that Pietro would go on to praise every last feature down to the nail on little toe, "I meant your white hair."

Of course, Pietro hit the roof.

"White?! White?! I'll have you know my hair is _silver_, Todd, how many times do I have to tell you silver? Anyway, Dad- Magneto- his hair is white because he's old. I've seen pictures of when he was young and it used to be dark. _My_ hair's like this because I'm _special_, and unique."

"You're just old before your time," Lance joked, but his comment fell flat the minute it left his mouth. The way his face sank halfway through his laughter indicated that he, too, had realised just why the joke was inappropriate. Wasn't that what was happening? Pietro's time was running out and this time, he couldn't catch up with it.

"Smooth, Lance," remarked Pietro, running an anxious hand through his hair. "It's fine. Really. I'm okay, I'll be okay. So, the cat's out of the bag, huh?"

Todd looked away. Fred was still clutching his chest, sweating profusely like an oiled hog. Lance was the only one making eye contact, and he looked terrified, or ashamed.

"I didn't tell you because I knew what you'd say," Pietro mumbled quietly. "That I was nothing like my bastard father. But the thing is, you don't know him. You don't know him for shit!" His voice was picking up now, a nerve had been touched and he was burning inside. "You say Magneto's a bad guy we have to take down, you've been made to think he's some Evil Comic Book Dude with a death wish for humanity. But you know what? That's bullshit. Have you ever even thought about what he promotes? Don't you see what he's doing? He's giving mutants a future. That crap Xavier spouts about humans living alongside us... Can't you see that they're the enemy? They'll fuck us right over if we let 'em, god knows it happens. My father," he pointed ceremoniously at his audience, now silent, "has the best of intentions. He wants us to live. Don't you want to survive? Don't you? For fuck's sake, it's survival of the fittest here! What've humans got, when it all boils down to it? Guns. Tanks. Ammo, ammo, ammo. So what? We can freeze time, we can produce fire, we can shake the earth!" His eyes sparkled psychotically, and he was shouting. "My father is not an anarchist. He'll only use destruction when it's necessary and let me tell you now, there will be destruction. Do you want to die fighting against it or rise above it?"

A fist hit the table in response, and the kitchen shook. "What is this crap Daddy's been feeding you? My god... He's brainwashed you. Another little Hitler!"

"HITLER?!" Pietro stood, nose to nose with Lance. "My father is _nothing_ like Hitler. Don't you know my father is reacting against scum like Hitler, that he was in a concentration camp himself?"

"Funny, I call 'destruction' of the human race one hell of a final solution!"

"You have no right to talk about my father like that!"

"Well, if you didn't want us to insult the bastard you shouldn't have told us. God knows why you even did, I'd be so ashamed if he was my father."

"As opposed to your father, who made your mother kill herself?"

"_Fuck you_."

Todd, looking agitated, hopped onto the kitchen table between them. Lance's fists were clenched and Pietro was trembling from head to foot with rage. "B-break it up, guys, yeah?"

"I told you because I thought I could make you understand," hissed Pietro. "All of you. What my father does and believes in is irrelevant; the fact is I am his son, and I will follow him because I love him." He stuck his chest and jaw out resolutely, challenging defiance with a cut-glass glare.

The tension was thick, and every breath was distinguishable. Lance broke the silence with a hushed, meaningful question, not daring to break eye contact as he spoke. "But does he love you?"

He got the desired effect. Pietro looked away and his body language became defensive; his fists disappeared up his sleeves and his arms wrapped around himself. With veiled eyes, he muttered an incoherent response.

"What, Piet?"

"I said, it's irrelevant."

"Of course it ain't," Todd said, catching on. "If you think he's so great, then you've gotta get something back."

Pietro nodded fervently. "He's taught me everything I know. He's _trained_ me. He has shown me my full potential, my goal."

"So?" Todd shrugged. "Don't need a father to do that. When's he ever taken you to the park to play ball? If you have a nightmare, is he there for you? What about Christmas, birthdays? How come he don't visit or send you presents if he loves you so much?"

A small, anguished squeak emitted from Pietro. It may have been a sob. "He only wants me to be the best I can! He's making sure I survive!"

"Would he protect you now, though?"

"Yeah- yeah, of course he would. I'm his _son_. He'd lay down his life for me." But Pietro didn't sound so sure anymore; his voice was shaking and his tone almost a whine.

"When'd he start training you, Piet?" Lance said more softly, urging the boy to look up at him. "What age?"

"Six. No, seven. Eight? I dunno, stop asking me questions!"

"Just a kid," Todd whispered softly. Fred made an odd moo of contempt.

"How'd you feel?"

Pietro shrugged. "It had to be done. I wouldn't have this power I have today if he hadn't."

Lance was not one to give up. "But how did you _feel?"_

"I felt... Oh Lance, I don't know! I was just a kid! Don't look at me like that; stop looking at me, why are you looking at me like that? I know it's not ideal to stick syringes in your kid and make him run treadmills for hours on end, but it wasn't like fucking abuse or anything. Know what would have been cruel? To let my powers develop at their own pathetic rate, to live every day feeling so damn vulnerable and afraid. My father made sure that I never felt fear. Try telling me that's bad parenting!"

There was no response from Lance, but inwardly he sighed. Either this was an extreme case of denial, or Pietro actually had a point. Was it possible to have such a severe upbringing and still be loved? Could Magneto really have been protecting son out of love- of _fear?_

Todd's murky eyes suddenly widened, an epiphany illuminating his strange features.

"Mag- your dad is like some crazy scientist, right?"

"Scientist, yes," Pietro sniffed haughtily, purposely avoiding Lance's quizzical smirk.

"And he made your mutation emerge, yeah?"

"If you're suggesting for one second that he is the cause of my illness right now-"

"NO! Don't you see? We could go to him for help! I mean, c'm'on, yo, he's your dad. He's gotta do something. I bet he'll have the answer straight off- 'fact I'm positive, if he's as good as you say. C'm'on, 'Tro, whatcha say? Might be our only chance. Whatcha say?"

Pietro became very pensive, staring over Todd's head out of the kitchen window. "I dunno, Todd," he mumbled.

"Why not? C'm'on, why not?"

"What if- he might- I just don't know, 's'all."

Todd sighed, hopping off the worktop with another waft of his unmistakeable odour. "Well, it's up to you. Do it, don't do it. But I'll tell you this, yo. If you're so sure he loves you and wants to protect you, you wouldn't even question calling him."

And with that, the newly wise Todd bounced off up the stairs leaving Pietro lost for words. Lance cocked his head to one side as a series of images of Magneto as a father cascaded around him. Him rocking his newborn son- helmet, cloak and all. Magneto pushing a mini-Pietro on a swing; spoon feeding him and making 'choo choo' sounds; dressed up as fucking Santa Claus on a dark Christmas Eve!

He only half noticed Pietro rising stiffly from his seat to leave, and only half heard the muttered "What've I got to lose?" as he too departed.

Fred, with his bottom sticking out of the open fridge, belched loudly.


	28. Pasta with the Master

Hellooooo... Thanks as usual to the beautiful reviewers.

Pyro Dragon, I am scared of you and do not wish to die so please forgive me- I have updated! Your humble servant... I bow to you.

Zenah- thanks for your comments. Don't worry your pretty little head; there will be juicy sex scenes in the near future!

As for you, Lyra- glad you're still enjoying it! Hope you like this daddy Magneto- I didn't have the heart to make him cruel!

Aaaand... Kickassangel! Sacre bleu luv, I thought I'd lost you! I will read your Pirates fic indeed. You're a goddess too and I love you abundantly, even if it doesn't make sense! Heh...

As for anyone else.... Hello, have a read. You'll like it. Promise!

On with the show.............

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His very own key.

Pietro stared at it as it dangled from a chain complete with the Boarding House's rickety skeleton key, the key to a padlock on some forgotten item and, bizarrely, a key ring in the shape of a haggis from Aberdeen. Including himself, he didn't know anybody who had even been to Scotland let alone felt the need to buy a dangling sweetmeat.

Back to this special key- his father had given it to him almost a year ago when things with the Brotherhood were somewhat unstable. In this period of constant arguments and serious fisticuffs, Pietro would come so constantly to Erik that for a while it looked like he might be leaving the Boarding House for good. It just so happened that Erik too was going through a shaky phase, feeling particularly vulnerable and thrown off course by a growing lack of support. Whether he sought comfort and company in the companionship of his son or believed that in adopting Pietro he could develop a perfect little soldier was unclear, but Erik was not too proud to beg him to come and live at Casa Magneto. Pietro had declined the offer, fearing his freedom would go straight out of the window but when Erik later slipped the tiny silver key into his palm, an unspoken agreement was made. Here was a place Pietro could always return, should the need arise.

And now it had. For the first time, Pietro slid the key into the lock and hoped with all his heart that his father would be home and not off playing bingo or whatever it was 'older men' did on Friday nights. One turn of the key and he would be sealing that pact between father and son, promising trust and acceptance. Hadn't that been what he'd wanted all along?

And yet here was Pietro, frozen at the door with his key in the lock like a mime artist gripped by sudden death. Why on earth was he afraid to use the key his father had willingly given him? It wasn't like he'd burst in on Erik doing something unpleasant, like naked barn dancing with the X-Sycophants for example. There was no risk of him being angry at the sudden arrival, since giving the key was preparation enough for expecting a surprise visit at any hour. So why so nervous?

Pietro sighed in defeat and slipped the key into his pocket, ringing the bell instead. He was such a terrible coward. No wonder whenever it came to fist-fighting he would go straight for the hair, or failing that disappear faster than a misplaced cheesecake at a Weight Watchers meeting.

The shuffling of feet from within confirmed that Erik was in. Pietro watched as his blurred shape moved towards him through the frosted glass, noticing how he stopped before to check his reflection in a mirror and tease his hair into place before carrying on. He smiled wryly- like father, like son.

Erik opened the door looking not at all surprised; possibly because Pietro was the only person he would ever dream of giving a key to his dwellings. His fabulous posture and piercing eyes had not changed, giving off that aura of vast superiority, but something was amiss. It wasn't a misplaced strand of hair- that as usual was perfect, and neither was it a noticeable tremble. Pallor, perhaps? Pietro couldn't put his finger on it, but his father seemed rather more subtle than usual. Withdrawn.

"Come in, Pietro," Erik said, gesturing gracefully towards the house. "I thought you might use your key. You are very welcome to."

"Sorry, I must've forgotten it," Pietro replied, taking in the glorious aroma of basil and ripe tomatoes. Not many people knew, but Magneto was an exceptional chef. It was something he liked to practice between gross human experimentation and schemes for world domination.

"I'm just making my dinner," Erik continued as they walked down the long, wide hall. The walls were a simple cream and adorned here and there with sophisticated geometric paintings. "There's enough for you if you would like."

Not wanting to be any trouble, Pietro opened his mouth to answer but found his stomach replied instead. "Thank you, that'd be great. If you've really got enough, I mean, I don't want to be a-"

Now Erik was in the kitchen, dishing out one large portion of pasta and a very small one. Without a word, he placed the large bowl in front of his son in a timeless ritual they had come to accept long ago. Pietro had never considered it before, supposing that his father had a comparably smaller appetite to his, which was Freddie-sized at the best of times. Whilst this was probably true, he couldn't help wondering now if Erik was also doing this out of a father's love- a sacrifice of his own delicious dinner to nourish his flesh and blood. Was it possible for Ole Bucket-Head to put anybody first?

"You are sticking to the diet-plan we drew up for you?" Erik questioned as they sat down in hard, ebony chairs to eat. Pietro couldn't help noticing the flat dullness that occupied his father's eyes, usually alight with rage or pain or ruthless determination.

"I try," Pietro mumbled, noticing that he wasn't particularly hungry anymore and the pasta stuck in his throat. A possible telepath, Erik vacated his seat to pour two large glasses of red wine. "But it's kinda hard to get the right food. Actually, it's kinda hard to get _any_ food. Money's tight," he shrugged, putting down his fork. "It's okay."

Erik took a long, pensive sip of wine. "I've got a little extra at the moment. How about I lend you some cash and you make it up to me?"

"No, dad- _father,"_ Pietro corrected himself, running a hand through his hair awkwardly. He always felt nervous here. Erik tried so hard to accommodate, but it only emphasised the vast distance between them. "I didn't come here for money. I- er- there's something- it's a little-"

"Eat, Pietro."

He obeyed. He couldn't bring himself to imagine what would happen if he stepped out of line with Magneto for a father, and a morbid fear had always prevented him from doing so.

"I won't lie to you, I was expecting a visit very soon," Erik began gravely. Pietro found it was impossible to look into his father's eyes and became preoccupied with his pasta instead. "Pietro, look at me."

But he couldn't meet those steely blue eyes- what was the emotion there? Disappointment? Numbness? Sadness? Suppose he looked up at his father and the torrent of emotion that had been building inside him for years came flooding out; there was no way he could cry or show weakness in front of who was, effectively, his hero. Oh god. Why think of crying? Pietro's eyes welled dangerously, and he fiercely bit down on his lip.

Crybaby. Sissy-boy. Wuss, where's your baby blankie?

"Please, just look at me a moment. Thank you. I think I ought to tell you that what you have come to tell me, I already know. Yes," he nodded as Pietro's mouth dropped open. "Charles wrote me. Pietro....." He trailed off, which was a very uncommon thing for him to do. Erik was normally so articulate that people suspected he pre-planned all speech months before with the aid of a dictionary, a thesaurus and a golden tongue. Now he looked haggard and afraid; his face had fallen and his pasta remained untouched. Like Pietro he brushed back his snowy hair with a hesitant hand, only for it to fall straight back into his eyes again. "Pietro...."

Behold, the great Master of Magnetism, struggling for words! Observe the Speed Demon, faster than lightning itself, as he strives desperately not to break into loud bawling tears!

"Shit happens." Pietro forced the words, sitting up straight in his chair and trying to look for all the world like the invincible young man his father thought he had bred.

"You do not need to be strong this time," Erik told him, boring straight into the centre of his eyes. "I fear I have made a grave mistake in raising you."

"What?" Pietro stood up, shaking his head violently in denial. "No, father. It is only through making me what I am today that I am able to cope with this bullshit. Sorry," he apologised, knowing that his father would frown upon coarse language. Erik even cringed at euphemisms! "I have so much to thank you for. My strength. My powers. My-"

"Pietro!" Erik intervened, gripping his son by the shoulders. They had only touched a few times before, never positively. "It is your strength and your powers that have resulted in this terrible sickness! I have always made you think that you and I are indestructible, and until I heard this news I believed it myself. But Pietro- my son- this is just a security blanket! It isn't true- isn't real! You are at risk of dying, and I am at risk of losing you and it is all for my own selfishness!"

This extraordinary outburst left Pietro stunned. He laid his hands on top of his father's on his shoulders as if to remove them, but simply kept them there as Erik continued.

"I thought if we had enough power we could transcend ordinary mortality. Do you understand that? I mean, if I trained us enough to be super-powerful mutants we might survive and out-live all the other pathetic humans. You see, Pietro, I am very weak. Don't look at me like that. You have been in awe of me all your life, and in my gross arrogance I have allowed it. But your role model is a deluded fool!" Pietro shook his head defiantly, not wanting to believe the words his previously godlike father was stating. Erik closed his eyes in frustration and took a deep breath before continuing. "What I did to you- when I started your mutation process at the age of six and indoctrinated you with my delusions, that did not strengthen you. It made you as vulnerable and irrational as I secretly am, if not more. It was not natural. Since being aware of your condition, I have not doubted that I am the cause of this. Do not object! How can it be that this is not down to me tampering with your mutation before it was ready to emerge... Manipulating your cells, corrupting your defenceless body with idiot science! Surely this is vengeance for my actions. I was your creator, and now," here he drew another breath, harsh and shuddering, "I may have to live with being your destroyer."

"Don't talk like that!" Pietro cried. "It wasn't your fault- it can't be- it isn't! And please don't say 'destroyer' like I'm bound to die. It doesn't have to be that way!"

"See," Erik replied, wishing that Pietro would remove his hands. They were cold, so abnormally cold and he had a strange superstition that he was feeling the hands of his dead child. "You think you're invincible. This is my doing."

Pietro sprang away, disappointment evident in his eyes as he stood and stared with his chest heaving and falling. "How can you just write me off like that? I'm not dying- not yet- nobody can say that I am! And if you're so fucking sorry for kick-starting my powers then use that damn science to save me. Please, father! I know you can do it- just stop the mutation from killing me! Please. Save me?" he added in a tiny voice, appearing to regress ten years as the tears he had never shed in front of his father burst through the barrier of so many years. Erik winced. It was so true. Underneath their rock-hard exteriors lay small, pathetic men with nothing to protect them from the world save delusions.

"I will do it," Erik promised, kneeling in front of Pietro and clasping his chilly, white hands between his own. "I will fight heaven and earth for your life if I have to."

Despite himself, Pietro found that he laughed slightly at this melodramatic choice of language. It was a bizarre situation. Here was his almighty father kneeling in front of him as he cried, promising to save his life! And he'd be damned if those weren't tears in the wrinkled corners of Magneto's eyes...

"Pietro, I cannot guarantee-"

"I know. But you're my only hope. I'm scared shitless, I don't want to die."

"I don't want you to die." Erik squeezed his son's hands.

Pietro began to feel his mood shifting. He was filled with the prospect of hope, and felt more relaxed in the presence of his father now that he had humanised himself and bared his flaws. "Get up," he urged Erik softly. "Anybody'd think we were part of Xavier's softie menagerie the way we're acting!"

Erik grinned, released Pietro's hands and rose with a grace of a former ballet dancer. Dusting off his knees, he returned to the table to fetch their glasses of wine.

"No looking back, then," he said as he raised his glass. "Only forward. What's done is done, and we'll try our best to mend it."

"I'll drink to that!"

Father and son were silent for a while after that, drinking in mutual contemplation. A large cloud had lifted over their relationship; guilty confessions had been made and true feelings revealed. Suddenly there was no need to be all-powerful, no reason to deny death. And if it was still difficult to embrace death, why not embrace each other instead?

"We'll start work tomorrow," Erik suddenly said, running through plans in his mind. If one could force a mutation into action, surely stopping one from veering out of control was no unfeasible task? "Pietro... I would like you to come and live with me."

Live with Magneto?

Pietro shook his head. "I couldn't. It's not that I don't want to; it's just... My home is with the Brotherhood. They're family- I know you are too- but um, well, there's something else there," he bit his lip, wondering how his father would react if he told him he was gay. But then common sense gave him a good kick up the back passage. Why should he have to feel shame for and Lance's relationship? There was no different between that and a straight love. In fact, he would feel far worse about telling his father he was with some dopey, fluffy female like Shitty Pryde. No, Lance was nothing to feel humiliated about. He was proud- a proud, proud lion roaming the plains of Africa and laughing at the puny antelopes that surrounded him! Love made him a hero, and this was what was making him survive.

"Lance and I are in love," he declared, chest puffed out in proud confidence.

Erik's eyes widened in surprise, but he remained cool. "I understand. What you do with your life is your choice. I am glad you are in love and, as with any relationship, you'd better pray he treats you right or he will have my wrath to face. And I am not joking," he added, as Pietro almost fell over with relief.

"What?" Erik's smile was dry. "You think they didn't have gays back in the Neanderthal days when I was growing up? Your personal life is not my concern. All I care about is your welfare, though I admit I went about it the wrong way. And Pietro," he added with a teasing sparkle in his eye, "to be frank- with the standard of young females in your life these days I can't say I blame you."

Pietro could hardly believe what he was hearing. Everything so far had been a blessing- food, wine, not having to tell his father that he might be dying, Erik's admittance that he had done wrong and the consequent fall from grace from idol to man, the shedding of long pent-up tears, the agreement to work on saving his life and Erik's very relaxed acceptance of his sexuality to name but a few. Could it honestly get any better?

"I mean," Erik continued as he began to bustle around the kitchen collecting bowls and glasses. "Those awful little Xavier girls- what's that nauseating brown-haired midget called, the one who can phase through walls? Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to rip that ponytail straight off her head..." His eyes gleamed. "I could use it to wash my car!"

A mutual hatred of Shitty Pryde?

It just got better and better.


	29. Of Mice and Men

Greetings, readers (if, indeed, I still have any after delaying this for so long…)

Thank you; thank you for your reviews. I hope this chapter satisfies, god knows you've had to wait for it due to my GINORMOUS case of writer's block. Truly gargantuan, I tell thee.

Love as ever,

Vamp

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In what Lance had come to know to be true Pietro style, his favourite little speedster entered the house as a blue and white whirlwind, threw himself down upon the sofa with a tremendous thump, and appeared in normal time with several hairs out of place and a vast grin.

"Well, hello!" he greeted Lance, his wide smile glowing eerily in the dim evening light.

"Always know how to make an entrance, don't you?" remarked Lance, grinning himself. Pietro's smile spread like crabs in the darkest, dingiest of brothels; for want of a purely unromantic simile. "I take it things went okay with Magneto?"

At this, Pietro jumped to his feet with puppy-like enthusiasm. "Guess-what-Lance?"

Of course, Lance could already guess the answer, but wanted to humour Pietro. He sprang up himself with a long-absent glimmer in his eye. "What-what-what?"

"You-really-wanna-know?"

"Hell-_yeah_-I-wanna-know!"

With a playful toss of his head, Pietro feigned indifference. "Actually, I might not tell you."

Lance responded by throwing himself down on his knees theatrically and grasping Pietro's ankles in supplication. "Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!"

Pietro gave a long, long sigh. "Oh, all right then." He took a deep breath, wondering how long he could hold the news back. "Well…" But much as he wanted to torment Lance, excitement swelled in the pit of Pietro's stomach and he could keep quiet no longer. The words burst out in a short, animated stream. "He said yes! Lance, he said yes! He's going to help us!"

A small pause.

"For real?"

A nod affirmed it, and in seconds Lance had flung himself upon Pietro, hugging and squeezing and laughing and crying and jumping. There may have even been squeals.

"It's going to be okay!" cried Lance as they continued to jump in each other's arms. "I just know it is! Fucking Magneto! Who'd'a thought it?"

Suddenly, a shade fell over Pietro's thoughts.

_But I'm not invincible. I never was. Neither is my father, neither is Lance and neither is anybody else. We've all got to die sometime._

He stopped jumping.

_We've all got to die sometime._

Deep breath.

"Whatever happens," he told Lance, seizing him with a piercing stare, "this can't die."

His pale hand found Lance's and entangled every finger with his own. Against his own beat another heart, almost tragically slower. Now their breath blended in a kiss- varying in pace and capacity, sending static shocks and cold shivers.

"Keep this alive," Pietro gasped and hissed between the fervent, possessive crush of Lance's lips. "Remember me and remember this. You can keep me alive in here-" he gestured to Lance's head and grasped a handful of hair. "D… Don't let me die!"

"Never," Lance mumbled in return as his hands wandered the length of Pietro's hot, hard body. "Never, never, never," his hands strayed to Pietro's belt and fumbled clumsily with it. "Ne-ver…" Pietro's jeans fell to his knees, and the boy clambered out of them with his arms stuck fast around Lance's neck, body pinned now to the wall.

He was dizzy, dizzy and Lance now held him in his grip- or was it his mouth? He couldn't see- he cried out- this was blind lusty ecstasy and he wanted- needed- to be taken in the hardest, fastest, dirtiest way. Passion… A little passion was good sometimes, sure.

"… Fuck?"

"Yes!"

Fuck, yes.

Lance's burning, sticky lips left that poor, desperate cock and chuckled moistly at Pietro's mournful cry.

And then Pietro shed the rest of his clothes and lay waiting on the carpet; silver-white, a perfect moon-boy begging for his completion. He dragged Lance naked into his ravenous stare, and in return big hands clasped his exposed sharp ribs and pulled his tiny frame into Lance's lap. They maintained eye contact - feral, intense, as Lance slid inside him with a razor sting. Pietro sucked in breath through his teeth and grabbed for Lance's shoulders. It began.

They started the rhythm, skipping slowness. Lance's thrusts were hard, greeted by the clash of Pietro's spiked pelvic bones as he rocked his hips. Brown hair, dripping with sweat, fell upon Pietro's shoulders. Warm, staccato breath shuddered down Lance's neck and spine as they moved together with the aching need of far too long.

Harder still, buried to the hilt, Lance plunged himself into his disgraced angel making two bodies shake with that force. Pietro was hurting- hoarse cries escaped him as he threw his head back and scored his nails down Lance's back, returning that deeply pleasurable pain. They increased the force yet more, now colliding into each other, bashing and crashing and smashing their bodies into one and with each thrust getting closer to the brink, the brink that would bring them eventually to the profound howl…. _Ohhhhhhhhhhhh_….

Lance's body tensed and convulsed as Pietro's inner muscles gripped him and quaked around him. They shook together, grasping and groping, arching their backs and screaming with the final release- a deep flow of power and remorse that seemed never-ending as something shattered within.

And then they fell.

"It's like a geek convention in here," Todd muttered to Lance through clenched teeth, jerking his head towards the various machines, equipment and scientists that were collected in Magneto's laboratory. "That guy over there? Keeps talkin' to me about tacky-cardia and heemertomer, whatever the fuck they're meant to be. And I just can't get over this whole Magneto thing. Coupla weeks ago he was damn near close to blowing us up, now we're his guest and he's serving us…." Todd paused, frowning as he inspected his drink. "What is this?"

"Moroccan Mint Tea!" Pietro cried merrily from the large metal table he was perched upon; surprisingly chipper for one with some twenty electrodes clamped to his head. He was revelling in all the attention- he had beautiful bright young scientists waiting on him hand and foot; and all he had to do was lie back, occasionally offer an arm for a blood test or injection of some sort, twitch his big toe upon direction, let the nice man listen to his heart, and follow the light on the end of his pen with eyes far too brilliant for a boy who was supposedly dying.

Also there was the added bonus of his father's undivided attention. Granted, Father Dearest was swabbing a thick malodorous gel over his hair and attaching a network of unsightly wires firmly to his skull, but it certainly made a change from the obligatory monosyllabic Christmas phone call.

"How do I look, Lance?" crooned Pietro, throwing the object of his affection a devilish wink. Lance, however, was far more interested in what was appearing on the tiny screen of Magneto's computer- the way Pietro's brainwaves would rise and fall in shaky green spikes reminded him of mountain ranges and unconquerable landscapes.

"Lovely, dear," murmured Lance, still transfixed. "What does it all mean?" he asked Erik, who was staring at the images with his head cocked to one side and, for lack of a beard, stroking his chin.

Erik raised one eyebrow at Lance. "I haven't the faintest," he shrugged. "I'm no doctor. That's Hank's job- he can tell you when he gets here."

"Doctor McCoy?" Pietro propped himself up on an elbow, only to be pushed straight back down by his father. "He's coming here?"

"Yes, and-"

But Erik didn't need to finish his sentence, for standing at the door was not only Doctor Hank McCoy but also Charles Xavier and his merry band of X-Geeks.

Three jaws dropped, and three hearts sank.

"My X-Men," Xavier declared in a rich, booming voice. "There stands before you a reformed man, united with his son through life's trials and tribulations."

As Erik bent over to adjust his son's wires, he could not help but snort with laughter. Xavier was an undeniably good fellow, but really quite full of crap underneath it all. Disguising his amusement with a cough, Erik straightened his back and gave his best angelic smile.

"Charles, Hank, how lovely to see you. Thank you very much for agreeing to help us. I see you have bought some…." His eyes scanned over the bunch of youths in front of him, narrowing for a second upon Miss Kitty Pryde. "Some, ah, students."

Jean Grey stepped forward eagerly, her toothpaste advert smile successfully administrating several migraines. "I'm going to be a doctor," she declared firmly, puffing her chest out with pride as she did so. "It's in my best interests to care for those less fortunate than I."

Concealed behind a large pillar, Lance theatrically mimed being sick.

"We are here to help," Scott Summers barked, so rigid that one could crack a walnut with his iron buttocks. "Despite our differences, we must come together."

"Is it really necessary?" Pietro quipped, somehow managing to maintain that knife-edge sharpness in his vulnerable position. "I mean we hardly know each other."

Erik chuckled under his breath. It was a poor innuendo, but God help them, it was all the X-Men could manage.

Scott frowned- or at least, his brow furrowed and mouth fell open in a style better attributed to the Neanderthal man- and having no better answer, merely nodded. "Yes."

"Let's get started, shall we?" Erik offered, still eyeing Shitty Pryde with extreme distaste. Either that damn ponytail went or he did. "Hank, Charles; if you will."

As the three men retired to Pietro's side, Lance took in the form of Kitty Pryde, devious bitch and soul-destroyer. She was not in her usual pink or baby blue; no, quite the opposite, she was shrouded in some shapeless grey wool cardigan that Lance could only assume was knitted from washing machine lint. Her face was bare and pale; the corners of her nostrils were ablaze with sickliness. Puffy-eyed, she was almost unrecognisable from the super-hyper megawatt girl he used to know.

'Here's a spoon, Shitty,' Lance thought. 'Enjoy your just desserts.' She deserved everything she got. Suppose she had torn he and Pietro apart. Would he ever have known of Pietro's illness? Fuck- suppose he was walking one day, out in the graveyard, quite unsuspecting, and from out of nowhere he'd see a stone bearing that dreaded name! Or he'd be going out early one morning to buy a pint of milk, and he'd suddenly catch sight of a newspaper emblazoned with Pietro's death. Pietro, the boy he used to love, would always love despite the heartbreak….

Life simply would not be worth living if she had got her way. Lance couldn't imagine living the rest of his life in bitter regret at having let Pietro slip away without him. The thought of Pietro dying alone petrified him more than the thought of his own death. Perhaps, if he could, he would offer up his life instead if it meant that Pietro could carry on. More realistically, he vowed to spend every second possible with Pietro so that if he should die, his arms were always open for a warm and comfortable passing.

Anything to numb the pain.

"Laa-aance?"

A tentative, pathetic bleating brought him back to earth, and he turned his wary eyes to Pryde. "Yes?"

"I, I, I, I…." She stared at her feet, turned inwards like a child about to wet herself. A long, rattling sniff preceded her reply. "I'm sorry for this, I guess."

Lance inhaled deeply. "Save it, Pryde. I've got nothing to say to you. But Pietro being sick… Well, it isn't your fault. So I guess you're excused." He turned his back.

"That's not what I meant," wavered Kitty, her voice rising in volume. The build-up of mucus made her voice thick and muffled, and an involuntary snort rose from her throat. "I tried to destroy you two because… Because I couldn't have you, and it tore me apart. My heart was breaking, Lance. It hurt so bad, I just- Please, excuse me. Try to understand what I-"

"I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE IT!" Lance exclaimed, throwing up his hands in disbelief. "Suddenly it's all about you again! _Your_ pain! Newsflash, Princess- Pietro might drop dead tomorrow! _That's _what being torn apart feels like. That's a fucking broken heart for you, and all." He sighed, and leaned in very close to her so that they were almost nose-to-nose. "Poor, poor thing. I genuinely mean it, Kitty, I feel so damn sorry for you. You just have no idea what love is, and you never will. I hope you look after yourself. Cherish that ego, because nobody else will."

x

"So, what _do_ those scribbles mean?"

Pietro was sitting on the porch of his father's house, watching the sun begin to sink into a dull grey sky like a fat, orange cannonball. Erik was standing on the doorstep, one hand on the drainpipe as he sucked on a thin cigar with narrowed eyes.

"Hank said-" Erik paused to allow himself another long drag, suddenly becoming anxious. "The scan showed a very strange imbalance in your brain, Pietro."

Pietro tried to control the fearful tremour in his voice. "Strange how?"

Erik said nothing.

"What do you mean 'strange imbalance'?"

"There seems to be…" Erik closed his eyes for a second, careful to recollect what Hank had said right. "Pietro, there seems to be a powerful build-up of electricity in your brain- it's a rather abnormal chemical reaction that has been set off by your… Your… Condition. Now, it means that your body might start acting against itself. You will probably have seizures, it might…" He cleared his throat and stubbed out his cigar, suddenly facing Pietro with a piercing stare. "There's a chance that some nerves will be destroyed and parts of your brain will suffer resulting in what Hank ambiguously referred to as brain damage."

Stunned, Pietro stared down at his hands. They were shaking involuntarily- this had been the first symptom of his decline. Try as he might to deny it, it was gradually worsening, and always incontrollable when stressed. He spoke in a very quiet voice.

"Wow," he half-whispered, as Erik crouched down next to him and they stared out thoughtfully at the setting sun. The transition into darkness was shockingly quick. "B-brain damage, huh?"

"But," Erik said, raising his tone in volume and pitch so that it might raise some kind of hope- some artifice that father and son could cling onto in a desperately sad dusk. "Your other organs are still reasonably strong. The drugs you are on at the moment are sustaining your heart and lungs pretty well. Your reflexes are still razor-sharp, and your blood is quite healthy save for a slightly decreased white-cell count."

Pietro wrapped his arms around his knees and muttered into them, now strongly lethargic. "So I'll get sick pretty easy."

Erik sighed and reached out to pat his son's shoulder. Physical contact was still somewhat tentative, and therefore never seemed fully satisfactory. "We'll just be extra careful. Any kind of sickness is likely to push you to the limits, and nobody wants that."

"Mmhm." Pietro then yawned, and gave his father a sidelong glance. "So they didn't find out what was wrong with me today."

"No, Pietro, but give them time-"

"Yeah, but how much _time_ have I got before I become a vegetable?"

Erik closed his eyes again- this time, a wince as he reeled from the stinging reality of his son's remark. "Pietro, please."

It began to grow cold.

"Ssssorry."

"Put on a coat on, mysza," Erik said in the firm, soft tone that only a father could manage. Parental concern, however, made him take off his own jacket and drape it around the shoulders of his shivering son. It was then that he realised Pietro was watching him through narrowed eyes, locked in some intense memory.

"Mysza," he whispered, mystified. "You haven't called me that for-"

"- years," Erik nodded, a faint smile on his lips. "I know. Not so much a mouse now, though."

Pietro leaned against his father's shoulder, vulnerability washing over him and erasing those last shreds of pride. "Well, I feel very small right now. And cold. And scared." Suddenly, he looked up at Erik with a remote light in his eyes, no longer afraid to plead for what he needed. "Would you- would you speak to me in Polish again? Tell me I'll be okay. Sing to me. Tell me stories. I just want to remember…. Mysza," he repeated again, voice trailing off in tiredness.

Erik clasped his son to him, and let the language he had suppressed for so many years flow freely once more; free into the early evening air.


	30. Telepaths and TalkingSticks

A note from your author: Three years

A note from your author: Three years! I can't believe it has been so long. A lot has happened since then, and I must say I've let all fandoms really. But I'm having a real life writer's block, so I've decided to return to this story just so I'm writing something (and I still have a soft spot for Speedy and the Rockhead). Not sure how this is going to turn out, so bear with me.

….

Slowly, painfully, the prognosis began to come true. Like the smoke coming out from his father's cigar when he had told Pietro what was going to happen, Pietro's brain became thick, grey and heavy. It started with one slurred word, which stood out from from the rest of Pietro's speech like a bass note in a choir of eunuchs. The lack of clarity wasn't surprising – since the boy normally three times as fast as everybody else, words jumbled into each other and mashed up into one super-whine. Lance, Todd and Freddy had learned to understand Pietro-speak by what a musician might call syncopation. Being something of a die-hard drama queen, Pietro liked to stress certain syllables in particular words, and the boys learnt to pay attention to those stresses. Here's a typical lesson in interpreting Pietro-speak: -

'Babblebabble- really hungry- jibberjabber- donuts.'

Or as Lance heard it: -

'Mimblemumble- hot- jabber- cock- babblechatter- fuck?'

They never thought that they would miss the super-speed skills of the demon gobshite. But it scared the hell out of them when Pietro began to slow his speech, forget his words and stumble when he spoke. There were times when Pietro spoke below normal speed, which he would once have thought a snail's pace. It was hard, it was infuriating, and it was devastating to see the speedy egomaniac they had known flickering on the horizon.

If they were upset by it, then Pietro was beat-your-breast and throw-soil-over-your-head beside himself. Nothing made him angrier than his mouth not being able to keep up with his brain. Or was it vice versa? When he forgot what he was saying in mid-speech, it made him so frustrated that he beat his head repeatedly, trying to wake up that fat slug of a brain. Because that was what it was – his brain had become like Freddy, bloated with inactivity. He imagined it clearly, sitting there in his skull on a lumpy old couch, saliva and bacon grease dripping down its wobbling chins as it gurgled and laughed at Days of our Lives. Wasn't that a pretty fucking picture? And Pietro wasn't so pretty himself – the high dose of steroids old Doctor Blue was pumping into him had made his face puff up, and he was not dealing with it well.

'Lance?' Pietro whined one evening when the drugs were really starting to piss him off. 'Do you think I'm ugly now?'

Lance rolled his eyes. 'That shit doesn't matter, Piet. You have to get well.'

He was rather pleased with that one. It sounded caring, mature and actually quite deep. Of course, he should have just said 'Of course not, I think that the inflated face look really works for me, please let me take advantage of your doped up body right now' as Pietro's bottom lip began to tremble.

'I look… like shit. I feel… like shit. My brain don't work. My brain is Fred!'

Lance shook his head sadly. Pietro was jumbling his words again. 'No, baby, you mean your brain is FRIED.'

'No!' Pietro's brows knitted in frustration. 'My brain is Fred, my brain is like him, and it's fat. And don't call me baby, what is this, a rom-com?'

I wouldn't exactly call this romantic, thought Lance. And then Pietro got a headache, and slept, and when he woke up he couldn't remember anything at all.

….

Later that evening, Erik held one of his meetings. It was not uncommon practice for misunderstood supervillains to hold meetings, but these gatherings did not usually involve wine and pretzels and a talking-stick. The talking-stick was an item of great power – after all, you could only speak if you had the stick. Erik found that it had helped immensely when handling talkative recruits such as that Australian pyromaniac fruitcake, and it ensured that his greatest, most knee-trembling speeches were listened to. Todd thought the stick was hippy bullshit, Lance thought it was patronising and Freddie hadn't quite grasped the concept that the stick didn't actually talk.

Hank was there, throwing medical jargon at Erik and nodding sympathetically during pauses in speech. Baldy Xavier was also present, with that irritating look on his face that said 'My mind is reaching out to you'.

Fuck your mind, Lance mentally growled.

Bless you, was Xavier's polite telepathic response.

'Let's discuss Pietro's progress,' Erik said, his voice cool and calm despite the bags under his eyes and tenseness in his shoulders.

He passed the stick to Lance.

Lance puffed out his cheeks, at a loss for words. 'Well… Like Beast – Hank – said, there's shit going on with his brain now. He's starting to forget things and he's slowing down, he's got the shakes and I don't think,' Lance paused, wanting to cry at the thought. 'I don't think he's fully in control of his body anymore.'

Hank sat up straight in his chair and took the stick from Lance. 'Could you elaborate for us, Lance?'

The boy folded his arms and clenched his jaw, wanting to shrink into himself. No, he couldn't tell them. Imagine what Magneto would think if he knew that his son had done _that_, something too humiliating to mention. It was for Pietro's dignity that he shook his head.

'Lance, you must tell us. We need to monitor Pietro's condition to know how to help him.'

Lance peered at Erik from under his hair. He didn't look so threatening right now; he looked like a weak and ageing man at his wits' end. Perhaps it was this that made him tell them, either that or Professor X's persistent mental wheedling. Suddenly, he felt sorry for the X-Tards, for having to endure that sort of torture on an everyday basis.

'It was yesterday night. Pietro…' Lance looked around furtively. 'Pietro...' He blushed, not for himself but for the information he was about to give. 'Pietro pissed himself.'

Faithful earth, swallow me up now, Lance prayed.

'He was whacked out on the tranquilisers so I don't think he knows. I cleaned him up but I haven't said anything… I can't, y'know?'

If anybody understood Pietro's pride, it was Erik. Touched by Lance's thoughtfulness, Erik clapped a large hand on the boy's shoulder. It was beyond weird to see compassion from Magneto, but Lance supposed that deep down, everybody was normal. Well, everybody except Baldy, he added as an afterthought.

'You did the right thing in telling us, Lance,' Erik said as he took the talking-stick. 'It helps a lot. I know this has not been easy for any of us, and unfortunately we will all see Pietro deteriorate from the boy he once was. If we all strive to find a cure together, we can stop this before it…' He trailed off, rubbing the bridge of his nose. 'Before it takes him from us.'

This was followed by a sad and reflective silence. Todd nibbled at a fingernail that was merely hanging on, but somehow too tough to come off completely. Bizarrely, it reminded him of Pietro. A nasty, dirty old fingernail too toughened by grit to break away. I like dirt, he thought dumbly.

'Has anybody come up with any ideas as to how we can help Pietro?' Erik was asking. He had obviously come to nothing, despite looking like he'd been up ever since he found out about his son's condition. Coffee may be wonderful for its abilities to keep the mind awake, but it'd be a hell of a lot better if it could do the thinking for you as well.

And then Lance noticed it. Ole Baldy was staring intently at Erik, blatantly using telepathy. He nudged Todd, who saw it too.

'Charles,' Erik politely said. 'The talking-stick applies to telepaths too.'

In your face, fucker! Lance rejoiced.

Bless you, Xavier repeated mentally.

Charles made a point of taking the talking-stick, handling it with the grace of one taking a religious artefact. 'I am sorry, Erik. That was very rude of me. I do have something very important to discuss with you that I think may be of great relevance, but I believe it is a private matter.'

Alvers, Lance – America's Top Secret Agent.

…

It was difficult to listen in when Erik and Charles had decided to hold their private conversation in Erik's conservatory. It was impossible for a boy of Lance's size to conceal himself when there were windows all around, so he had to resort to hiding in shrubbery just outside the open door. He could hear just well enough to obtain the top secret information. His cheeks burnt with shame as he crouched in the damp, earthy-smelling plant. Was he that desperate that he had to spy on his boyfriend's father (and former evil boss) and Professor X the Mutant Genius? He remembered back to the time when Pietro had first placed his hand over his buzzing heart, the way his mind had flooded with thoughts about the boy. PietroPietroPietro. It was like that ever since. And with Pietro's life dangling in the balance, he needed to know anything that might save him. Even a shadow of hope was enough.

Still, Lance thought, spying in a bush is hardly stable behaviour.

'Well, Charles,' Erik's voice drifted through. He sounded like he was smoking. 'What's the secret?'

Yeah, what is the secret? Lance begged, before catching himself out. What if Baldy 'heard' him thinking?

'There are things I believe you or Pietro haven't told the others,' Charles' voice came through slowly, as if he was considering every word. 'I don't believe I need to spell it out for you.'

A silence followed. Erik exhaled loudly, and then sucked his breath back in with a long sigh. 'Wanda.'

Baffled, Lanced craned his neck to hear more and got a faceful of cobwebs.

'Erik, did you really not think of her when you found out Pietro was suffering? It's an obvious pattern, for goodness' sake. They're twins.'

Lance almost fell over backwards. Twins! Pietro had a twin? This was fucking unbelievable, first a fucking supervillain for a daddy and now a potentially very hot twin?!

'Is… Is she okay?' Erik gasped, sounding very hoarse all of a sudden as if something had stuck in his throat.

'Erik…' Lance guessed that Charles had taken his hand, as their voices became more intimate. 'I'm afraid I cannot trace her on Cerebro anymore.'

He knew that Erik must have his head in his hands, because his replies were too muffled to decipher. But Lance caught one word, and it was a poignantly defiant 'No'. Lance didn't understand what Charles was implying, but from Erik's reaction he guessed that Pietro's twin was dead.

'Charles,' Erik asked in an uncharacteristically small voice. 'Do you think that she's dead?'

'I fear it, Erik,' Charles said softly. 'I suspect her powers went into overload like Pietro's, and if this is so, we may not have very much time to help him. I'm… I'm very sorry, Erik.'

Thoughts were whirling around Lance's head. He couldn't believe that Pietro hadn't told him about his sister. And why could Charles only trace her by that damn computer of his? It just didn't add up. Her powers had already killed her, now they were threatening to take Pietro. What could they do, what could anybody do?

It was too much to think about. He just wanted to go to bed and curl up beside Pietro's cold, pale frame and clutch it like he'd never let it go.

'You haven't lost me yet,' Pietro's frail voice sang in his memories. He would hold on to that for as long as he could.


	31. Sparks Fly

Lance was outside

Lance was outside. Professor No-hair was holding Daddy-dearest captive. Todd was probably freaking out as Hank talked science. Freddie was asleep, in a chair which he had immediately claimed when they came to Magneto's lair and stayed in almost every hour of the day. There was already a groove in the shape of his almighty buttocks. But at least Fred had something to do, like everybody else except Pietro. And if anybody should be doing stuff and being the shockingly-beautiful centre of attention, it was poor sick little Pietro.

What would Shitty Pryde have said at a time like this? Something nauseating, like 'Hello?'

'Like, hello? Pietro here, the kid with the problem that you're all trying to solve. Remember him?'

As if on cue, Todd hopped in with that unmistakeable scent following him. What was it – wet dog, eggs, damp and slightly mouldy cabbage.

'Man, you look bored,' Todd remarked. Pietro was draped over an armchair, pulling a loose strand of wool out of the sleeve of his sweater.

Pietro was surprised, but seriously relieved, at the fact that he was being spoken to like a normal person. Which is how he felt, apart from the stodgy feeling in his head like oil floating on water. Thoughts had to go through the oil before they formed properly, and sometimes they didn't at all.

'Everybody thinks I'm a retard, nobody wants to talk to me. You better ent-ter-tain me, Toadboy.'

Todd winced inwardly at Pietro's struggle with the word, choosing to ignore it. 'It's so weird, yo… Bein' in Mag- your dad's house.'

Pietro bristled, his eyes narrowing under dark lashes. 'Go home if you don't like it.'

'C'm'on, Piet, I didn't mean that, yo.' Todd raised his slimy hands in defence. 'But we only ever knew your dad as some super-evil weird guy, and he turns out to be just… your daddy, who lives in a real nice house with lots of cool stuff. It's kind of cool that we can hang out here now…'

'Yeah,' Pietro said moodily. 'I even get to sleep here now, just so they can watch me d-'

Todd cut him off, jumping to his feet and bursting into the strangest rendition of 'Baby Got Back' Pietro had ever heard. It was a bizarre spectacle, with the Toad sticking out his jaw and spanking his behind and even, god forbid, pelvic-thrusting his way through the show-piece. The spontaneity of it was so perfect that Pietro immediately forgot his troubles and watched Todd jiggle around the room until he could barely hear the boy above his own laughter.

'Piet,' Todd gasped after taking his applause, now rubbing his overspanked bottom. 'Sometime soon they're gonna find a cure and you'll be running round like a crazy freak again. Much as I enjoyed that, yo,' he paused, waiting for Pietro to stop snickering. 'I can't steal your title of world's biggest freak.'

After that they sat in silence. Pietro occasionally snickered at the thought of Todd shaking his booty. The laughter had been good for him, almost medicinal. And Todd had given him hope about the cure that he knew his father was working on morning, noon and night. If they found it quick enough then he could jump right back into life as a freak that shook his booty a damn sight better than Todd did (and dare he say it, rapped better too).

If he thought about the future, he could distract himself from the fact that he was slowly forgetting everything.

...

Later that evening, Pietro was still sitting in the same armchair, obviously hoping to become a second Fred. Not long ago Lance had entered the room, silent and brooding. With his long hair and rumpled shirt, Pietro thought he looked like a man on the cover of a cheap romance novel. Dark, wordless and gloomy. And, more importantly, incredibly sexy.

'I like big butts,' Pietro said wistfully, causing Lance to break out of his reverie and raise an eyebrow in his direction.

Pietro was sure saying some weird shit… Lance didn't like the sound of this. Better check for a temperature and shine a torch in his pupils, clearly somebody wasn't home in there.

'La-aaaaance!' Pietro whined as his boyfriend fussed over him. 'I haven't gone gaga yet, Todd was singing that song earlier.'

Lance blew out his cheeks in relief and shook a strand of hair out his eyes. 'That song is awful.'

He opened his arms for Pietro to climb in and curled him close. They stayed like that for a few minutes, still and silent. Then Lance spoke up, wanting to ask the thing that had being swelling up in his mind all evening.

'Pietro, are you an only child?'

Pietro lifted up his head, fear in his eyes. No way in hell could Lance know about his crazy, secret sister! When he joined the Brotherhood, his father and his sister were just two skeletons in his closet that he never cared to mention. Now everybody knew that he was Magneto's boy, and it seemed that the truth about Wanda was slipping out too. It would be good not to have secrets anymore, to stop the skeleton rattling inside… What was he saying! Lance would think both and he and his father were monsters if he knew the terrible things had happened to that little girl! He just wouldn't understand that, like daddy said, it had to be done.

Besides, it had become such a well rehearsed lie that he almost believed it himself.

'Yes Lance, I'm an only child,' he said, unable to meet that bright stare. It was the colour of chocolate with none of the warmth. He wasn't sure Lance was buying this, but no more questions were asked. What did the past matter now anyway, when the future was so vague?

...

That night Pietro got worse. There was a ringing in his head, a loud harsh ringing that made his head feel like it was going to split. He felt sick, felt like numbness was spreading from his fingertips down his arms to his chest to his groin to his legs to his toes, numb and dull and aching. He had his first seizure, and Hank was grateful that the boys weren't there to see it. As the boy thrashed and foamed blood at the mouth from his bitten tongue, his father was torn between looking and not looking with lines of agony etched into his face. Couldn't Hank make it stop? Erik had tortured many people in far worse ways, but seeing his son's body lose control like that made him sick to the guts.

He thought it was the trauma that made him see it. As Pietro twisted and writhed, he could have sworn he saw a small blue bolt crackle from his fingers, like the electricity in his brain was forming physical sparks. He wanted to tell Hank, but suspected it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He would be told to rest, and that advice was futile. Sleep had been impossible for a long time now.

When the seizure wore off, Pietro slept for a whole day. Erik and Lance sat by his bed, trying to be normal against the bleep of machines and the jolting brainwaves on the screen in front of them.

There was not much to say. Both wished that the other wasn't there, so they could be alone with Pietro when he came round. Out of politeness, Erik tried to make small talk.

'So, Lance, do you like baseball?'

Even in the rather grave circumstances, Lance couldn't resist sniggering. He couldn't imagine Magneto being into baseball, standing in the crowd with a hotdog and a big pointy foam finger.

'No.' Lance drummed his fingers on the armrest of an orange plastic chair. It reminded him of being in school and waiting outside the Principal's office. 'Do you read books?'

Erik tensed up as his son moaned in his sleep, and then relaxed as it passed. 'Yes, I'm very fond of literature… Er, do you?'

Here's a chance to impress future Daddy-in-law, thought Lance.

'I love to read,' he lied, aware that he was putting on a pompous voice but in no way capable of stopping that or the bullshit that flowed from his mouth. 'Do you know the novel about Brunhilde? That is a… literary masterpiece.'

Future Daddy-in-law chuckled. 'Lance, you are talking crap and that novel is possibly the worst thing ever written. It's garbage; romantic trash for miserable housewives. And by the way, did you know look just like the cover of a bad romance novel? I suggest cutting your hair and not having your shirt open to the chest.'

Lance was ready to take offence – after all, he was taking this from the man whose battle costume consisted of badly co-ordinated colours and a helmet that looked not unlike the head of a penis!

'Relax,' Erik smiled, looking pale and worn. 'You're okay, kid.'

'Thanks,' Lance replied. He suddenly wanted his father more than anything, feeling the aching loss in his stomach. 'So are you, I guess.'

They watched Pietro sleep, trying to ignore the wires and bruises and scars from his fingernails. He looks like crap, Lance observed. How long did he have until he died, just like his –

'Mag – Erik,' Lance asked, unable to stop himself. 'Does Pietro have a sis -?'

But his question was lost to a frantic bleeping of machines, and Pietro waking up.

…

Erik sat on his son's bed, nervously. Pietro's eyes were open, but the lids were heavy and drooping.

'When am I gonna get this fuckin' cure!' he exclaimed, putting on his old front of cheeky defiance. It didn't quite work without his smirk, which he couldn't seem to pull off as his mouth was still numb from the tranquilisers.

'Soon, Pietro,' Erik soothed. 'Hank and I are working all hours on your genes, trying to reverse and destroy certain things. I won't go into scientific detail as you've had enough drugs to send you to sleep, but rest assured that we are doing everything we can.'

'Dad,' Pietro asked in a tiny voice that he was sure sounded like a whiny-assed kid. Well, right now he felt like one and any sympathy was welcome.

'Yes, Pietro,' asked Erik. He suspected that Pietro was about to ask for something ridiculously sugary, or a stack of magazines, or even Lance.

Pietro stuck out his chin. 'This thing that's happening to me… Is it happening to Wanda too?'

Erik clutched his chest and sat down, obviously shocked by his son's boldness.

'Dad, I have to know,' Pietro continued. 'Is she okay?'

His father sighed a long, hopeless sort of sigh.

'Charles has lost her on Cerebro,' he said in his most controlled voice. 'That probably means that she has –'

With a surprising amount of energy considering the drugs, Pietro sat up in the spindly metal bed and rattled the bars. 'NO! She's not dead. She cannot be dead. We're twins, I'd know if she was, I'd feel it if she was, she's not, she's not!'

Erik took the boy's shoulders in his strong hands, and gripped them firmly. The control he still had over the boy was intense, and Pietro immediately fell silent. An identical thin tear ran down each of their cheeks for the girl they had lost years ago, the girl who would never come back.

Pietro looked at his father, examining the network of lines around his face. He wore all his grief and regret there, pain spidering out around his eyes and dragging his mouth downwards. He didn't want his dad to lose both of them. It was cruel to make him pay the ransom for experimenting with their powers in this way. Hadn't he said he was sorry, what more did that bitch Fate want from him?

The pressure was on now. Fabulous and beautiful as he was, Pietro wasn't doing a great job of staying alive for his dad. He'd have to ask Professor X-tremely Weird to show him some hippy mind tricks to keep his body healthy, and make sure Lance brought him some tricky crossword puzzles to stop his brain from dissolving into mush. He was going to stop his bastard mutation from destroying him – after all, he was Quicksilver the Great, out-runner of all evil… wasn't he?

It must have been the shock of the loss, or denial, but the feeling that Wanda wasn't dead wouldn't go away. Pietro was sure that if he reached out to Wanda, he could still feel her there. It was faint as a dying pulse or a stifled sigh, almost not a feeling at all. Nothing was certain. All he knew was he didn't want to let go, not yet – not ever.


	32. Smoke and Mirrors

Of all the ways to spend a Friday evening, this was not on the top of Pietro's Super-Fun-Things-To-Do-Before-I-Die list

Of all the ways to spend a Friday evening, this was not on the top of Pietro's Super-Fun-Things-To-Do-Before-I-Die list.

For one thing, he wasn't looking great. It took a lot to get past the Great Ego of Maximoff, and he couldn't even pretend to be hot at the moment. His body was getting out of shape, meaning that for once he could actually pinch an inch. He still had electrode gunk in his hair from some stupid brain test Hank had insisted on doing for what felt like the millionth time. When he talked his face felt flabby and loose from the tranquilisers, like his mouth was hanging off on a flap. There was a big scratch down his cheek from one of his seizures, which he hated most in the world because he couldn't control what his body did when it was jolting like crazy. And to add insult to injury, he had some ugly monitor attached to him which bulked out his chest like a giant man-boob.

But what he looked like was only a minor problem when he considered where he was, and with whom. Here he was, of his own accord, with Professor Baldy in his Menagerie of Freaks! He was sitting in a large room with nondescript cream walls and brown leather furniture, as bland as the folk that normally inhabited it. There was one wall, however, that really pissed him off. It was emblazoned with a hundred fluorescent post-it notes that had nauseating messages upon them like 'Believe in yourself!' and 'Reach for the highest star!' and what was undoubtedly the worst: 'Never turn your back on those that are less fortunate.' There was no guessing who that referred to! No wonder those geeks were all so sanctimonious when they had to look at this wall every damn day. He was glad all the X-Geeks had gone off on a day trip in their ridiculous jet, because he really couldn't deal with their pitiful stares and murmurs of comfort. The most sickening thing he'd heard yet had been spewed from the mouth of Kurt Wank-ner when he told Pietro that they were all praying for him. Praying!

He turned his attention back to Baldy, who was contentedly staring at him as though he was an object in an art gallery.

'No mind-reading until I say so!' he reminded the Professor, who simply grinned in response.

'You are so much like your father, Pietro,' Charles said. 'You have my word; I will not enter your mind without permission. But would you please remind me why you want me to do so?'

Pietro rolled his eyes. Counselling with this guy must be thrilling. 'I know the sickness is in my brain. But I don't think it's physical. I want you to see if my mind is screwing my mutation, y'know, in case this is all psychsm – psymoso- psychomo-'

'Psychosomatic,' Baldy said helpfully, giving Pietro a patronising little grin. Pietro glared. He knew the fucking word, he wasn't a fucking retard!

'That's a very interesting theory you have there, Pietro,' he went on. 'I must admit that the thought had crossed my mind too. You see, a lot of physical illness is actually manipulated or constructed by the mind. Usually it's a completely unconscious result of the mind failing to communicate properly with the body. The good news is that we can reverse these signals if we find out what your mind is trying to say – this is where my telepathy comes in, I understand? Now I've prepared a diagram to show you exactly what I think I can do -'

Blah blah blahblah blah. For a telepath, he certainly loved to talk. Pietro briefly squinted at the Professor's intricate diagram before deciding that enough was enough.

'Thanks for the science lecture, Prof,' Pietro smirked. 'But let's get down to it, I don't have all day.'

…

Lance suspected Baldy was boring Pietro to death in there. He was pretty bored himself, sitting in his beloved jeep with nothing to entertain him but the radio. And that was barely entertainment, churning out eighties pop like it had suddenly become cool over night.

He had parked just round the corner from the Institute, where he hoped he could remain unseen by the X-Geeks. The area was unusually quiet, and from what he could see there was no trace of anybody on the lawns. From his ghastly experience at the Casa de Baldy, he knew that the retard-recruits spent most of their time outside so he guessed that they had gone on one of there 'adventures'. Well, that was fortunate for Pietro – the last thing he needed right now was any more sympathy.

Last night, Lance had tried to cradle Pietro after his worst fit yet and been pushed away. Even though he was weak, Pietro stuck out his chin and told Lance not to treat him like he was dying. Lance had to admire that determination, but he wanted to hold Pietro for his own comfort – wanted it so badly that shameful tears came to his eyes when he remembered how Pietro snatched his hand away and turned his back.

'How am I supposed to deal with this?' whined Lance, catching himself in the mirror as he did so. What a stupid, snotty baby he looked. It had been so much easier before he loved Pietro, when he was just a normal guy with no complex emotions. That Lance would have been at dealing with Pietro's sickness, he could have been strong as a rock all the way through. That was how Lance was trying to be, but love and fear was getting in the way.

He turned his attention back to outside. Admittedly, it wasn't very interesting. The street was lined with trees that looked dauntingly tall in the brightness of the sun.

A lady in the house opposite his jeep came to the window to hang a man's shirt out to dry. She looked tired and drawn, with stains all over her apron. Another house had balloons in the doorway to mark some kid's party. At least somebody's celebrating, thought Lance with a bitter sigh.

There was a girl walking down the road to the institute. She looked about the right age to be an X-Girl, but something told Lance that she wasn't with them. All the Xavier Kids had that nice, shiny, clean look about them. This girl looked messy and somehow wild, with her black hair hanging down to her waist in rats-tails. Her clothes were ill-fitting and she walked fast, constantly looking behind her with a jerky turn of the head as if she thought she was being followed. Lance noticed that her eyes were darting all over the place. On the whole, she looked very agitated.

He rolled down the window.

'D'you need some help?'

The girl's eyes widened and she jumped as if she hadn't expected to be addressed. She opened her mouth to speak, but her face clouded with fear. With an awkward, swift little movement she turned to run in the opposite direction, running away from the jeep and the institute. With one last look behind her, she was gone.

Now that was interesting.

…

Pietro had to sit very still, and be patient, and try not to think too much. That was not very easy when Baldy was sitting there, whistling through his nose as he breathed whilst very rudely wandering around Pietro's deepest thoughts and memories. Sometimes, the Professor would frown and rub his temples as if he had read something troubling in Pietro's mind. After a while, the frown didn't go away and Pietro began to get panicky. This could not be good news. After all, it must take a lot to make old nicey-nicey Xavier frown. His beloved Scott Summers could probably string Lance up by the intestines and Baldy would simply smile and say 'Never mind, Scott. We learn from our mistakes.'

Did it have to take so long to read his mind? Pietro felt strangely certain that his mind was controlling, if not creating, the illness so why hadn't Prof found it yet?

Or perhaps he had found it, and it was something so dark and horrible that nobody would be able to help him. How ironic, that Pietro had spent all his life being a hyper crazy weirdo and now his brain was actually making him die! I'll be the death of me, he thought grimly.

Finally, Baldy took his hands away from his temples and looked Pietro sharply in the eye. It was a questioning look, as if he was searching him for hidden clues. The Professor shook his head, and for once looked at a complete loss.

'What did you find?' Pietro asked impatiently, trying to conceal the note of anxiety in his voice. 'Or… not find.'

'Pietro,' Xavier began, with a grave little smile. 'Pietro. I saw something very, very concerning in your mind. I will be frank with you. It is not exactly your mind that is making you ill, as we rightly identified, it is your mutation going into overdrive. But Pietro, this is the alarming thing I saw, and I ask you to prepare yourself for this news because it is going to come as a shock to you.'

Pietro braced himself. The suspense was horrible – the wait felt like years on end and his heart was hammering against his chest.

Xavier cleared his throat and fixed Pietro with another stony stare.

'Pietro, when I entered your mind I sensed there was something overtly powerful about your mutation that I had not felt before. It seems like… This is an amazing revelation, Pietro. It seems like you have more than one mutation.'

…

Now Lance was bored rigid. Baldy had sent him a telepathic message saying that he would be at least another two hours with Pietro. That was enough time for him to stretch his legs around the neighbourhood, maybe go to a grocery store and pick up a newspaper or something. He got out of the jeep and noticed how deceptively cold it was for such a bright day. Oh well, he thought, I hate the sun anyway.

Walking down the street made him realise how little he'd been out recently. Most of his time was spent indoors with Pietro or in Erik's laboratory. It felt good to be free; much as he hated to think it, it even felt good to be alone for a while. With the fresh breeze blowing on his face, everything seemed better. If Baldy was taking so long, he was probably making great progress with Pietro. There was even the tiniest chance that Pietro could be cured by the end of the day…

A dark shape lurked on the corner. Lance squinted and the shape became the strange girl he had seen earlier. She was leaning on a tree taking short, deep draws of a cigarette. Smoking didn't really suit her, but it seemed to relax her from the paranoid freak she had been earlier.

'Man, I'd love a smoke,' Lance thought out loud. The girl looked at him with narrowed blue eyes, still using those anxious birdlike movements.

'Sorry,' Lance mumbled. 'I guess I'm more stressed than I thought. Excuse me.'

He turned to go.

'Wait,' called the girl to his retreating back. Her voice was kind of raspy, as if she rarely used it. Lance raised an eyebrow at her, hoping she wasn't going to come on to him or anything.

'It's okay,' she said, holding her cigarette box out to Lance. 'I'm not crazy.'

Somehow Lance found this hard to believe, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was getting a much needed cigarette off the chick.

'I saw you going towards the Institute,' Lance said as he lit his cigarette. For a second the world melted away into his first puff of smoke. He closed his eyes and took it in. 'I'm a mutant too. Why'd you run off?'

She looked at him with a stare that was at once cold and burning. There was anger, fear and pain in her eyes that made Lance uncomfortable. She was both vulnerable and unapproachable, simultaneously asking for help and refusing it. This girl was more of a conundrum than Pietro, and that was saying something!

'I'm… not a mutant,' she said, looking down. Her hair hung down and shielded her face. 'I was looking for somebody to help me. Something really weird is happening to me.'

She lifted her head and stared straight at him with those terrifying, wild eyes.

'Help me.'


	33. Stranger

The moment Erik found out about Xavier's discovery, he began working solidly in the laboratory

The moment Erik found out about Xavier's discovery, he began working solidly in the laboratory. He looked like the stereotypical mad scientist with his white hair sticking up in peaks over his goggles as he frantically emptied bottles, took readings and fiddled with various beeping machines. Erik had not sat down for five hours, and the knowledge that he had made no progress since he began made him all the more determined to stay upright.

'C'm'on Dad,' Pietro sighed from the Examination table which he had been unable to leave. 'Take a break.'

'Not yet, son,' Erik panted as he dragged a scary-looking machine across the floor. 'Not when I'm so close to working something out!'

Pietro raised a sceptical eyebrow and tugged at the stupid heart monitor he was being made to wear for no apparent reason whatsoever. 'Well, can I go then?'

Erik shook his head firmly. 'What if I need you for tests? And Lance isn't here to look after you right now in case anything happens.'

Pietro let out the kind of frustrated grunt that only a spoilt teen can make. Why did Lance have to go to the scummy Brotherhood house anyway? He had a nice bed here, good food and peace and quiet. Not to mention the fact that his super-beautiful boyfriend in need resided here too. Perhaps Lance was beginning to do what Pietro knew he'd do all along – push him away before he drifted off like that red balloon. On second thoughts, Lance might be out getting him a surprise present! He definitely preferred the latter.

'Then can we have a little, tiny break?' Pietro wheedled, making his blue eyes extra wide and appealing. Daddy could never resist that look.

Defeated, Erik laid down his goggles. 'Ten minutes,' he declared firmly. Thinking that he'd need it, he added, 'I'll make some strong coffee.'

…

He didn't know why he did it. Out of the goodness of his own heart? He doubted it. There was just something about this girl that he couldn't place – although he was undeniably scared of her, he was also drawn to her vulnerability.

Not many people had asked Lance for help in his lifetime. Sure, there was the odd request to push a broken-down car, but he was rarely asked for support and guidance. It was especially odd for a stranger to ask him – and stranger was a very good word for this girl as she was exceptionally strange. But if she had just been a normal kid, Lance wouldn't have been so drawn to her. It was the hardness of her stare and her desperate attempts to hide any sort of weakness that made him want to help her. He had seen kids like her in the childrens' homes. They were the kids that nobody wanted, the ones that had to be tough because nobody had ever taught them how to smile. That was why he had to help her, because he could have been one of those kids himself.

The first thing he did was give her a bed in Mystique's old room. He showed her where the limited food and drink was, apologised for the filth and promised to come back later to talk to her. Then he picked up Pietro from the Institute and drove him back to Erik's, all the while thinking about the weird girl whose name he didn't even know.

Why didn't he tell Pietro about her? He thought that poor speedy had enough to deal with right now without having some crazy chick to worry about. It was more than likely that Pietro would be horribly jealous of Lance's new friend, and could be just as homicidal as he had been about Kitty. That would probably give him a heart attack this time!

So here he was in the Brotherhood house, sitting on the threadbare couch and watching the girl sip black tea. She looked a lot better now that she had washed, with her black hair in a kind of knot on the top of her head. Her face could have even pretty, if it wasn't quite so angular and twitchy.

'Thank you for the room,' she said, trying to sound polite. Her voice came out strangled and forced.

'Were you sleeping rough before?' Lance asked in a soft voice. He guessed it was important to make her trust him, though he had next to no experience in being Mr Caring.

She ignored his question and stared at her bleeding, cracked nails.

'You haven't told me your name yet,' Lance tried, wandering if he was going to make any progress with this mess of a girl.

'Rumplestiltskin!' she cried manically. She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together, screwing her eyes shut as she did so. Lance began to think she was a genuine fruitcake, and not just a troubled girl without a home.

'Look, you're a mutant, right?' she asked in a quiet, controlled voice.

It suddenly occurred to Lance how stupid he had been. He'd let a psycho into the house who wouldn't even tell him her name, and she was probably now going to kill him for being a mutant. Well, wasn't this fantastic. You try to show compassion to your fellow man and the next thing you know she's scooping out your eyes with spoons.

'You thought I was a mutant too,' the girl continued. She was beginning to calm down – her movements were becoming less awkward and her face was softening. 'You said you would help me. Do you promise?'

Jesus, thought Lance. Did he really have a choice? He couldn't imagine her taking kindly to the word 'no'.

'I don't know what I can do,' he said. 'I mean, I'm just a normal guy.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'Promise.'

Lance squared his shoulders. 'Look, er… Miss. I've given you shelter and food. I'll listen to you and try to help any way I can, but –'

He noticed how wide her eyes were, and that they were almost shining with desperation. Without her having to say it and humiliate herself, it was made clear that nobody had ever kept a promise to her. Perhaps she wasn't so good with people because nobody had ever been good to her. That was something the Brotherhood understood only too well.

'Okay,' Lance said, surprised at how much of a softy he was becoming. 'I promise. Now, I don't know why you want me to help you but why don't you go ahead and tell me what's wrong? I've got some freaky shit going on too.'

She smiled slightly, or at least, one corner of her mouth curved upwards making her look feline.

Lance pressed on. 'Why were you going to see Xavier?'

The girl sat up straight and glared right into his eyes. 'I told you I wasn't a mutant,' she said, enunciating every syllable perfectly. 'But I lied.'

That was hardly surprising to Lance. In fact, he was almost relieved to hear it. In a crazy way, admitting that she was a freak made her a little less weird.

'But here's the problem,' she whispered, leaning in close. 'It's my powers. They've disappeared.'

…

An hour later, and Pietro and Erik were still taking a coffee break. Erik admitted that he wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to achieve with his experiments. He thought that there might be a way to split Pietro's mutation and find out why he suddenly appeared to have two. After all, if he had been the one to scientifically force the mutation then maybe he could somehow weaken it. But how… That had him scratching his stubble.

Pietro was quiet and thoughtful. He wondered if he would get a second mutation, and what it would be. It made sense now, that it wasn't his own mutation going into overdrive but his body being unable to cope with the addition of another. But if his body adapted to the two mutations then he could possibly be the best superhero ever… Unless the powers contradicted each other, like super-speed and being bigger than the Blob. That would truly suck. What would he even call himself, the Speedy Slug? Thick-Silver?

Something else was bothering him. He couldn't stop thinking about Wanda, about the fact that he would never see his sister again. For so many years he had missed her, only getting by from imagining that one day she would come back. The initial flame of hope he had felt of her still being alive was dying down, replaced by a dreadful numbness.

'Dad,' he mumbled, his head starting to swim from his night medication. 'I was wondering… Do you think we should say a few words for Wanda?'

Erik blinked rapidly. 'For Wanda? Oh, Pietro, I don't know…'

How could he, the father who condemned his own daughter to an institution, bless her memory? The guilt burnt up from his stomach and made him want to be sick.

'Do you think she was in pain when it happened?' Pietro asked, noticing how his father couldn't look him in the eye.

'Oh no!' Erik exclaimed, feigning boldness. 'She was the strongest out of all of us – she would have fought to the end.'

It was what Pietro had wanted to hear, but it didn't settle him at all. A huge and uncomfortable silence swelled between them.

Erik couldn't bear silences. 'Pietro,' he said, unable to keep up his façade of strength. 'She really was the strongest. I'm afraid I am very weak. I sent her away because I made her too strong, when I should have faced the consequences and helped that little girl.' He smoothed his hair and let out a shaky breath, trying to pull himself together. 'I don't know how you can look at me right now. Sometimes, Pietro, I wish you would hate me like she did.'

Pietro shook his head. 'She wouldn't have hated you now.' This was not the same man that did all those terrible things. This was just his father, who was really just a man.

Erik smiled through his remorse and took a tiny bracelet out of his pocket. He dropped it into Pietro's hand, the chain flowing like a silver tear. 'You should have this, Pietro. Keep it close to you… It is the only thing of Wanda's that I have and I do not deserve it.'

Pietro turned the bracelet over in his hands with surprise. It was so small and delicate that it could fit a baby. There was a plaque in the middle of the bracelet that read 'Wanda' in ornate writing. It touched him how his father had carried it with him all these years, as if he had always loved her. Looking at Wanda's baby bracelet made it all so real now – she was gone, and she wasn't coming back. He had only the bracelet and wispy childhood memories to cling to. He couldn't let them go.

To protect his dignity and prevent Pietro from getting too upset, Erik got up to find a handkerchief. Pietro watched a tear splash down over the silver, running over his sister's name.

'Wanda,' he whispered, and nearly screamed the laboratory down at what happened next. His fingers crackled and burned in a sensation that he had never felt before – it felt as if they were generating electricity. The fire building up inside his fingers grew and grew until he felt like he would burst – and then it shattered into an explosion of light.

Terrified, he wrenched his eyes open. The bracelet in his hand was glowing blue.


	34. A Horizon Appears

AN: I'm not very good at being a geek, so sorry for only just having to figure out how to delete that annoying repetition of the first sentence at the top of the chapter. Just ignore it in the last few chapters if you can. Thanks for those gorgeous reviews.

Erik came back into the laboratory to find Pietro with a smug grin on his face. It was the type of grin that said 'Look what I did, Daddy', the same smile that had set terror into Erik's heart when Pietro was little. He remembered that exact face from one very traumatising incident during Pietro's potty training, when his little cherub had left him a surprise in his helmet. This, despite the circumstances, made him chuckle.

'What on earth have you done this time?' he asked his son good-naturedly, which made Pietro almost squirm with glee.

'I've seen my new powers!' Pietro exclaimed, having quite forgotten how ill he was in the midst of all the excitement. 'There was this tingling in my fingers -'

Erik interrupted, frowning. 'Tingling? We'd better do some medical tests.'

'No, Dad!' Pietro insisted. 'It was the other mutation! My hands felt like they were burning and swelling up -'

Erik raised an eyebrow, about to reel off a list of medical symptoms.

'And just when I thought I was going to explode these… these sparks shot out of my fingers and made the bracelet light up!'

Pietro sat back, smirking and panting and waiting for his dad to be as excited as he was. This was, after all, completely amazing!

'If I learn to control this mutation then I can get better, Dad! My body's only screwing up because it can't handle two sets of powers. But if I get control then I can do anything, I can get better and I can be pretty freakin' awesome, probably the best superhero in the world!'

He expected Erik to jump up and down and sing the Hallelujah Chorus. Instead, he noticed that his father was looking very, very concerned.

'What colour were the sparks, Pietro?' he asked in a wary voice.

'Blue, of course,' Pietro said, rolling his blue eyes to match. 'And I don't know if they were sparks, they were more like -'

'Bolts.'

Pietro nodded, not understanding why Erik suddenly looked like he wanted nothing better than to stick his head in a filing cabinet and to slam the door on it hard.

…

The jaw-dropping new discoveries of the day had left Pietro exhausted. For his health, it had been a very good day with no seizures or even a headache. The exciting new possibilities distracted him from wallowing in self-pity, and he had barely even noticed Lance's absence.

'I can get better now,' he told his pale reflection in the bathroom mirror. 'I know I can.'

'Oh, can you?'

A sickly little voice startled him from behind, making him jump in a very effeminate manner. Somehow it wasn't very surprising to see the owner of the voice there, in his father's grand marble bathroom. With any luck, she had phased through the toilet and met something disgusting in the U-Bend.

'Shitty, how delightful of you to drop in,' he snarled. 'I would say pull up a seat, but I'm afraid I might flush you.'

She glared at him through her smudged mascara, looking like a premenstrual panda. 'You don't seem that sick to me.'

'Ask Magneto for his latest medical report,' Pietro smirked. 'And why not volunteer to donate some organs, I'd simply love to have your liver. I'd also like your heart, but my dearest Lance already has that, doesn't he?'

Pietro realised he was quite enjoying this surprise visit – even when potentially dying, he was still shit hot.

Kitty folded her arms, disappearing into her shapeless navy sweater. It made Pietro miss the pastel candy-fluff she used to wear, because there was nothing about her appearance to mock. It was just too pathetic.

'Whaddaya want, Pryde?' Pietro hissed, expecting she hadn't come by for tea and cake.

Her puffy eyes narrowed into tiny slits. 'There's something I think you should know,' she said, sounding disgustingly nasal. 'About Lance.'

Surprise, surprise! Return of the Jealous-Psycho, sticking her claws into dead meat!

'Don't try to tell me he's fucking you,' Pietro said. 'I can smell the bullshit from here.'

A cruel smile curved her lip, like a snake about to strike. 'He's moved on from me. And he's moved on from you. Right now he's at the Brotherhood House with a girl, and if you think I'm making this up then I can prove it.'

She flicked her greasy-looking hair, and Pietro was sure he got a waft of bacon. He wanted to flush her head down the toilet and laugh in her face because Lance would never cheat on him, but his insecurities were already swooping down upon him. Hadn't he known this would happen? Lance didn't want to be with someone who was one inch away from dribbling and wearing plastic underwear! He'd shacked up with some normal, healthy girl who could promise him a normal, healthy life. And he would leave him as miserable and sour as Shitty Pryde, leave him to die on his own while he frolicked with Miss Perfect!

'Take me there,' Pietro said through his teeth with forced calm. 'Take me there now.'

It had better not be true. He had two mutations, and he wasn't afraid to use them.

…

The walk to the Brotherhood House seemed to take forever. The medication slowed Pietro down, but only to a normal person's speed. What made the journey hard was the growing sense of dread at what he would see when he entered the house. He was also extremely disgusted that he was accompanied by toxic Kitty, who he could have sworn was giggling hysterically under her breath. This was not a good thing to think about on his deathbed. To hell with Lance if this gave him a heart attack!

He had forgotten how shabby the Brotherhood's living quarters were. As they approached it, what had been home looked like a derelict death-trap. The mouldy shutters flapped in the wind and revealed that every single window was broken. He remembered how Lance had boarded them up with wood stolen from a dumpster, in which they had also found the rocking chair. Despite himself, he smiled.

They came to the familiar red door.

'Well, Miss Kitty,' he said with as much charm as he could muster as he offered her his arm. 'Lead the way.'

With the strangest sensation he had ever felt, she phased them through the door. Pietro could feel all of his body melting as it disappeared through the wood – it was like floating on water and flying all at once. Much as he hated Kitty, he couldn't help being amazed by her powers. It would be awesome to go wherever he wanted with no closed doors, just phase right in whether he was welcome or not.

It was only a momentary distraction from what he saw next. It was exactly what he didn't want to saw, and also exactly what he knew he would see. There was Lance, sitting on the couch and staring at a black-haired girl who was standing up with her back to Pietro and Kitty. Pietro was glad he couldn't see her face because her very presence was enough to make him fill with fear. It reminded him of a horror film where as long as the monster doesn't see you, you're safe.

Kitty was smiling in a 'told you so' kind of way. Pietro sincerely hoped that she phased herself into Todd's underwear drawer on the way out.

'I'll leave you to pick up the pieces,' she whispered to Pietro, with her poisonous lips alarmingly close to his neck. The next thing he knew, she was gone and he was alone in his old home about to face his cheating boyfriend.

Subtlety was not something he did well.

'LANCE!' he screeched, making the boy in question clutch his chest in shock.

'How the hell did you get in here?!' Lance spluttered, shaking his filthy adulterous hair out his love-rat eyes.

'Kitty Pryde gave me a tip-off. Looks like she was right this time,' Pietro whispered venomously, glaring at the girl's back.

Lance almost laughed. 'Come on, Piet, you're sick. And Kitty's sick. And actually, she's sick too, now that you mention it. The thought of me cheating on you with her is stupid. No offence,' he added to the girl.

But she ignored him, and refused to turn round to confront what she knew was finally there. She clenched her mouth shut, wanting to be far away – she wasn't ready to do this, even after years of wishing for it.

'I took her in because she was poor and scared,' Lance continued, in a level voice. 'Just look at her – she isn't some bimbo I've picked up for kicks! I'm just trying to help her.'

Pietro seethed. Look at her! He didn't want to look at her, the villainous bitch. 'Help her? You're supposed to be helping me! What is this, some kind of charity project?'

Lance rolled his eyes. 'Don't be such a brat.'

He noticed that the girl was trembling. She couldn't hide. She couldn't hide.

'P-Pietro!' she blurted out, smothering her mouth as soon as the words came out as if they had burnt her.

Pietro froze on the spot as the girl turned around and her face swam into focus. There was no way this could be happening. The medication must be stronger than he thought, because he was almost sure that he could see –

'Wanda!'

Blue eyes met blue.

They were now both shaking, blinking as if they were trying to wake up from an impossible dream. 'I thought you were dead,' Pietro whispered.

Lance could only stare. What the hell was going on? How did Pietro know the crazy girl, whose name had now been established as Wanda? And was it just him, or were their faces scarily similar when put together…

'Is this really happening?' she asked in a voice that was barely there.

Pietro swayed on the spot, thinking that if anything was going to give him a heart attack tonight, this was it. Wanda was alive, and Wanda was here! He had only one thing that could prove it.

Lance watched as Pietro passed a tiny piece of silver jewellery to Wanda. She passed it through her fingers as she examined it with an awed gasp, and promptly burst into tears. It was obvious that she had not cried for a long time, perhaps never cried, as she made no effort to conceal the loud jolting sobs that shook her frame.

It was a devastating picture with Wanda breaking down and Pietro rooted to the spot, too afraid to touch her. He had one hand stretched out towards her which twitched with need, but he couldn't seem to reach her. He wanted to cry but he couldn't do that either. All he could do was study her face, read it closely in case she went away again.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Lance. They looked so similar because they must be twins, and they were so shocked because they had been separated a long time. He guessed that Wanda might have been locked away for her madness, and Pietro had been forced to forget her. But something more alarming was fitting together in his head – Wanda had lost her powers, and Pietro's mutation was multiplying. If the same blood ran in their veins… could it be connected?

Too excited to notice his own cleverness, Lance ran out to the jeep to fetch Erik and Baldy. He knew this had to be the answer to the puzzle; it was almost too good to be true! For once, he drove carelessly and swerved all the way to Erik's house, noticing nothing. The trees blurred into one thick line as he raced down the road. His heart was pounding, pounding, pounding in his chest. For once he understood the rush that Pietro got from speed. He was rushing towards hope that stretched out across the horizon like a sunset.


	35. Being a Dad

Here we go, another chapter. I know I've been betraying the slash element recently and not including much Lance/Pietro goodness, but the plot got in the way! Rest assured there is more to come – this chapter is just advancing the plot. And thank you so much for my lovely reviews, you (and an stonking great case of writer's block!) are what keeps me going.

--

There it was: her baby bracelet. It was hard to believe that something so tiny could carry this much meaning . She had almost forgotten who she was, hellbent on creating a new identity that didn't burn her with its memories. Wanda – even the name seemed alien. Wanda was a happy little girl, Daddy's princess, the cleverer twin. It all went wrong, and when Daddy and Pietro went out of the picture, she felt that she had vanished too.

She trailed the little silver bracelet through her fingers like sand. Father had kept it, should that mean anything? If he hated her he'd have thrown it away, or more likely sold it. Was he trying to keep a little piece of her? And did that really make it alright, to still love her and let her live in a cell with nobody to hold her?

Pietro was pacing, fidgeting, jabbering. Wanda, Wanda, Wanda, Wanda! Shit, what would Erik think? Was she dangerous, would she launch a long-overdue hex attack on the pair of them?

He came right up close to her, judging whether to put a hand on her shoulder. It was now or never.

'Wanda, I am so so sorry for... y'know. Honestly, neither of us wanted it to turn out that way. But what could we do? '

No, no, no. She did not want to hear this right now. For years she had rehearsed this conversation in her mind, imagining the great reconcilation. Now it just filled her with bitterness and anxiety.

'Wanda... sis... What the hell did they do to you in that place? I never thought I'd see you again.'

She clenched her hand tight around the bracelet, afraid.

'You said you thought I was dead,' she said, pronouncing the words very clearly to disguise her fear. 'Did you want me to be?'

Pietro let out a strangled gasp. 'No! No. Wanda, this is what I've always dreamed of... I'm kind of freaked in case this is just a trip from all my medication.'

Her eyes narrowed , darkening to a rich violet.

'C'm'on, Wanda,' Pietro said softly, aching to hold her hand. 'We're twins. I can feel you right here,' he pointed to his heart. 'And you're the only person who wouldn't think that was stupid or gross, 'cos I know you feel it too.'

She nodded her head mechanically, over and over again, her eyes were spilling over.

'Empty,' she whispered. 'I felt so empty there and I cried all the time hoping you would hear me.'

Another strangled noise escaped Pietro, and she realised that it was a sob. She reached out to him.

'Will you be my brother again?'

He didn't reply in words, but he opened his arms and let her fall into his embrace. It felt like water finally quenching a fire, flowing freely over smoke and ash. They cried together for each other, and for a lost past.

...

'Don't ask stupid questions, just fucking come with me!'

Lance was at the end of his tether. Here he was, trying to break some life-changing (and in Speedy's case, possibly life-saving) news and nobody seemed to be remotely interested.

Trying to tear Erik away from the lab had been increasingly more difficult. He'd sit for hours at the computer, trying to break codes. Half a day could be spent trying to mix one chemical solution, and then an entire night would be devoted to trying to separate it. Lance began to suspect that Erik had sewn a white coat to all of his shirts, just for easy access.

'Lance, I'm in the middle of a scientific breakthrough,' Erik sighed, none too pleased to be disturbed.

Lance rolled his eyes. 'Erik, please? This is so unbelievably important – it's, like, ground-breaking news.'

Erik raised an eyebrow. 'Like, ground-breaking news eh?'

'Ugh,' Lance grunted, shaking off his verbal Kitty Pryde attack. 'But yeah, seriously, it's a huge discovery. I think I've found the key to saving Pietro, but you gotta see it to believe it.'

Finally, Erik took off his goggles. 'Okay, Lance. On one condition, though.'

Lance grinned, glowing with excitement. 'Anything you want, sir.'

'I'm driving,' Erik replied firmly, daring Lance to defy him. 'No way I am I getting in that piece of crap you call a Jeep.'

...

Wanda pulled herself away from her brother, anxiously searching his face for clues.

'Something's wrong with you,' she said quietly. 'I knew it.'

Crap, Pietro thought. This is not a good time to be dying. All these years waiting to see Wanda again, and when you finally do you're skinny and pale on a goddamn heart monitor with a verbal death sentence! Mind you, she wasn't looking too gorgeous...

'But you're not okay either,' he said. 'It's like something's missing...'

She nodded shyly, wishing she could put her guard back up. 'Something weird happened to me a while back,' she replied. 'I woke up and my powers had gone. I guess I'm not a mutant anymore. I came to get help, I was so freaked out and I didn't who to – Pietro?' She paused, because her brother's jaw had almost collided with the floor.

'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,' he babbled, beginning to pace again. 'You're not dead, you're just not a mutant anymore – that's why Baldy couldn't trace you on that stupid computer of his. Oh my god, I knew it! I knew it! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!' he cried wildly, clutching at his hair. Suspecting he may have been a little melodramatic and possibly camper than a supercool sex god brother should be, he turned calmly towards his sister.

'Wanda,' he said. 'Look.'

At first, she didn't see anything. She saw his pale, bony fingers flex. She saw his face screw up in concentration, a strangely familiar gleam building up in his eyes. And then – sparks! Blue sparks – little bolts that spoke to her, little bolts of herself.

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. Pietro had her powers. He had her powers. HE HAD HER POWERS? Was it not enough to take their father and a comfy home and financial security? Pietro had the good looks, the talent, and now the only tiny thing that was ever truly hers had been claimed by him! What next, would he havea sex change so he could be a better girl than her? Was nothing at all fair in Wanda Maxioff's dingy, crazy, witchy little life?

'Er, Wanda?' Pietro asked, his voice slightly higher than usual. 'Are you okay?'

'How the hell did you get my powers?' she growled, poking a finger into his chest.

(Thank fuck I've got them right now, Pietro thought.)

'I-I-I-I-I didn't w-want them!' Pietro protested, noticing how afraid he was of his sister even now. One glare of hers was a thousand times worse than any needle that had been pressed into him, stronger than any burning medicine he'd had to take or even more humiliating than having to use a bedpan in front of Professor X.

'They're making me really sick, Wanda,' he said, suddenly feeling exhausted and dizzy. He swayed on his feet, and despite her anger, Wanda pushed him gently into a chair. The shabby tapestry armchair with drool stains like snail trails on the cushions reminded him how fond he really was of the Brotherhood house – it may be a shithole with no apparent heating, but it was home.

'I know you're ill,' Wanda sighed. 'I could kind of sense it.'

'I'm dying,' Pietro said, and it was only then that the vastness of the situation hit him like a monster truck. 'You lost your powers, somehow they went into my body, and it's killing me. I'm,' and he lowered his voice, scared to admit it. 'I'm scared.'

Pretending to be brave about it had kept everybody positive. Because he didn't want Lance to worry or cry, every day was a joke. He pretended to stick a finger up at death, laughing that he wouldn't need more memorial flowers after the last time he 'died'. He arranged silly pranks for his funeral with Todd, and wrote a smutty obituary for himself. Every time he had sex with Lance, he would quip that it might have been fatal. And though these jokes of his didn't lessen the pain of losing him, he knew they would remember him in a better light. He didn't want to be a loser or show that he was cracking up inside. If he gave people laughter, then he thought he could stop their tears.

Wanda felt a strange mixture of remorse, anger and disgust welling up inside of her. Lab-rats were always bound to fuck up and die. Father's injections and his medicine and his sick eagerness to make them 'invincible' had led to this – first, her powers turned on her and now they were claiming her brother. It made her want to vomit, and hot tears stung her eyes.

'This is our father's fault,' she said in a vengeful whisper. 'This is his lesson.'

...

The Magnetomobile was not quite the vehicle Lance had expected. It seemed that the supervillain had traded in his crazy wheels for a more middle-of-the-road Dad-Car. Even in his mad excitement, Lance couldn't help but be disappointed by Erik's car. It betrayed his inner-child that the Master of Magnetism infact drove a boring, safety-conscious black five-seater. He also had to note that said Master of Magnetism drove rather like a grandad.

Erik seemed to read his mind. 'Were you expecting the Batmobile?' he chuckled.

Lance grinned shyly. He remembered a question he'd always been meaning to ask, that everybody else had dismissed as the dumbest thing they had ever heard. Still, it might break the ice a little.

'Hey, can you drive a car with your powers?'

The older man laughed again. 'No, but I can open a can of beer.'

'Cool party trick,' Lance replied, imagining Erik's infinite domestic abilities. You'd never need a tin-opener with that guy around. Then again, misbehave and he'd be using you as a fridge magnet before you could say 'aluminium'.

There was a slight pause while Erik waited at the traffic lights, taking a moment to look at the young man. What on earth could Lance think was so important? And it really was time that they picked up Pietro, he had missed several doses of different medications and ought to have a meal before he went to bed. Jeez, Erik thought to himself, I am a boring old Dad.

The rest of the journey passed in silence, with the two wondering if they were ever going to bond. As they pulled up to the Brotherhood Boarding House, with its familiar boarded-up windows and mouldy brick, Erik ground his teeth to prevent himself from complaining about the state of the place. He parked the car neatly and followed Lance to the door, hoping all this was really worth it. The house was particularly filthy, and he didn't want Pietro catching anything in his fragile state. Boring Dad mode again, he warned himself. Being cool was something he would have to work on later.

Lance opened the door with a creak, and Erik's stomach immediately dropped in preparation for a nasty surprise. The last time he had felt like this was when he had entered the hospital room,knowing instinctively that his wife was dead – pure cold dread.

'Here we go,' Lance announced, and led him into the living room.

Erik suddenly knew why he had felt so cold. He had known before he'd even seen her. Before he'd walked into the room, those dark blue eyes were searing into his, burning him now with their confrontation: 'Father!'

'Dad,' Pietro led Erik to a chair, seeing how pale and clammy the man had become. Wanda was shaking and twitching, counting silently to overcome her rage. As Erik's lips moved, Pietro noticed that he was counting too, probably to keep himself sane.

'Wanda isn't dead,' Pietro told him, although this may have been blaringly obvious. 'She lost powers, and -'

'That's why Xavier couldn't pick her up on Cerebro!' Lance blurted out, causing all three to look at him in shock. 'Yeah,' he admitted, not used to being the one with the brains. 'Wanda's not a mutant anymore, so Baldy couldn't trace her so you thought she was dead and stuff. But this is actually a really good sign, 'cause if Wanda's lost her powers and Pietro's gained another mutation then...' he trailed off, aware of three pairs of blue eyes glaring into his.

'Sorry,' he muttered, sticking his hands into his pockets dejectedly. 'That's family business.'

Pietro gave him an apologetic smile, looking strangely angelic. 'But Lance is right, we've worked it all out. Dad, I got Wanda's powers when she lost them. Something went wrong with our mutations – you've gotta be able to fix it, right?'

But Erik was too shocked to even nod his head. He had never expected to see his little girl again. And what a cruel twist of fate, a perverted stroke of luck, that she couldn't use her powers to fight him. It hurt him that all she could do was stare , trying to drive all her pain into him with a single look.

Pietro continued. 'Dad, I know this is a massive shock to you. But you need to sort this out. This is your chance to undo all those mistakes you made, I know you can help us both.'

Undo those mistakes... The words struck Erik like a slap in the face. Here were his children: his boy's body failing and his lost daughter cold and silent, with years of pain in her eyes. He had created this, and this sick family reunion was more than a punishment.

Only... was there hope? Please Wanda, he willed silently, hoping she would look at him with more than hurt. A good father would make it all better, replace what was lost and relieve the pain. A good scientist would reverse what he had done and correct any problems. But could he be either?

'Would you let me help you, Wanda?' he asked, feeling sick as he looked straight into her eyes, gagging on his own pride.

First, nothing. Then she nodded so slightly that it was hard to tell if she had moved at all. It was if every inch of her was reluctant to respond to him in case he let her go again. She nodded again, ashamed by her childish need for a father. What she really wanted betrayed her anger and her pain, but the need had always stayed with her.

She opened her arms, and clutched at the man who had hurt her the most.

'It will all be alright now,' Erik soothed, needing to convince himself more than anybody.

They had the answers now, but more importantly, they had each other.


	36. Facing Up to the Tuff Stuff

Again, I'm just trying to tie this bit of plot up so that we can move on to more fun slash and Kitty bashing. That's the reason this is a bit lengthy, and quite possibly a bit dull!

Oh, and obviously, I'm not very good at science. Um... Erik's dastardly schemes probably don't make any scientific sense, so I do apologise. Really I do!

--

If he wasn't so utterly exhausted and drugged up, Pietro would have sulked. No sooner had he got his sister back than the excitement was over, he'd been forced to go home to bed. His body had rebelled and had a stupid seizure in the car, meaning that he was in Constant Medical Supervision a.k.a. prison. Of course, there were perks to this such as having an amazingly gorgeous guardian answering to his every whim.

'Doctor Lance,' he slurred happily, unsteadily reaching out to stroke the boy's face. Lance frowned.

'Don't tire yourself out, Piet. You've got to rest now. I know today's been super-crazy but Wanda will still be here in the morning and who knows, your Dad might have discovered a cure by then.' He tucked a loose strand of silver hair behind Pietro's ear to see his face better. No matter how much Pietro complained about the bloating from the drugs and the scratches and pallor, it was still easily the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Would ever see.

'I can't believe Wanda's here,' Pietro said sleepily. 'I always kind of knew she wasn't... dead, but I never dreamed she'd come back.'

'I gotta tell you,' Lance began, realising that even the drugs couldn't stop Pietro's mind from whirring. 'When I first met Wanda, she was... like some wild animal or something. She was crazy, I was scared of her. '

Crap, Pietro thought, Lance is more observant than I thought. Here comes the dreaded question.

'What happened to Wanda, Pietro? Why didn't you tell me you had a twin?'

Pietro yawned massively, hoping to avoid the question with tiredness. Some doctor this was, pestering the patients – and not in a good way, either. Doctor Lance should give bedbaths with extra slippery soap and massages and... mmm...

'Pietro?'

Double crap.

'Lance, I couldn't tell you about Wanda. I couldn't tell anybody, neither could Dad. It's too... screwed up and you wouldn't understand.'

Too screwed up? Who can resist secrets like that? Immediately Lance forgot about his tired little patient, and he was hungry for the juicy truth. 'Aw, come on Pietro,' he coaxed. 'You shouldn't keep secrets from me – now Wanda's here, I deserve to know, right?'

Pietro looked shiftily out of the corner of his eye. 'I don't know, Lance... It's a very very bad thing. I don't want you to think... you won't understand...'

'Try me,' Lance pleaded, and Pietro wanted to fall into his honey coloured eyes. He felt safe there.The awful truth had been such a burden, like carrying an invisible-Fred around with him for all those years. Lance did deserve to know, however he might react. And Pietro was so drowsy that he didn't really care for anything theatrical right now, which for the speedy showman was definitely saying something.

He raised himself up on an elbow to look straight into those deep, warm eyes. 'Please don't hate me, Lance.'

A small smile curled the corners of Lance's mouth. 'I could never hate you, Pietro. You're crazy and irritating as hell and yes, a touch fruity, but I could never hate you.'

Pietro grinned. 'Thanks, Lance. And if we're talking about fruity, don't you think that long hair is a little... eighties porn?'

'Fuck you,' Lance chuckled, before vanity got the better of him and he surreptiously brushed his hair back. 'Anyway, out with it, Piet. No more secrets,' he added, his eyes turning serious .

'Okay,' Pietro sighed, puffing out his cheeks at the difficulty of his task. Where to begin? And where to stop, come to think of it. Better to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then he would sleep through the night for the first time in years.

He cleared his throat.

'When Wanda and I were kids, Dad was very strict. Since he was raising us on his own, he was scared to let anybody near us. He just wanted us to be safe – he was terrified of the world, Lance. My Dad... he's seen some bad things in his life. All he wanted to do was make us strong, he just wanted to protect us but,' he fought back a sob, almost angry that he was justifying his father's reasons, 'he went too far. We were six when he first took us into the lab. He pushed us hard, injected us with all kinds of shit – he wanted us to be super-mutants. The result? Our powers came out before they were ready... He was making me run on a treadmill when I found that I just couldn't stop, couldn't stop running. He thought that was the most amazing thing ever, even though it almost killed me.'

Pietro turned his face away from Lance, never liking the next part of the story. 'Wanda's powers came through later than mine. First she got weird - she was always a quiet kid before, but she started to get freaked out by everything. Then she started blowing things up when she got mad. It was fucking scary sometimes, like we never knew how far she would go. Her powers were crazy and destructive, we had to walk on tiptoe around her in case we pissed her off. Anyway,' he swallowed, wishing he was telling somebody else's secret. 'Wanda's powers got worse and worse, 'til she just couldn't control them anymore. She'd wake up sometimes with holes burnt in the ceiling, or she'd sneeze and smash every glass in the house... Dad used to say that it couldn't go on, but I didn't understand what he meant. He tried everything, he got in tree-huggers to counsel Wanda, he got a witch to put her in a trance, he even called Baldy. But nobody could help... fuck,' he whispered, as tears began to sear his cheeks.

'One day, this kid at school was really picking on her, calling her weird and stuff. She just lost it and hit him with her powers, then she lashed out at a teacher. They locked me in a classroom in case she tried to kill me – I was terrified. Next thing I knew my Dad was there, and he was crying, and Wanda was crying too. The kid she hit...' Pietro choked with the pain of his confession. Lance stroked his shoulder, urging him on, refusing to judge.

'The kid she hit was dead, and the teacher went into a coma. I didn't understand that my Dad wasn't crying because of that... You see, the school had called the police, and they told him to lock Wanda away so that she couldn't hurt anybody else. He didn't know what to do – he was so cut up that he had brought this on himself that he couldn't deal with it... Anyway, next thing I know, he's telling me Wanda's got to go away somewhere. Wouldn't tell me where, or for how long. And he told me not to tell her, in case she got scared. I kept quiet 'cause I thought she would hurt me... Pathetic, huh?'

He took a deep, shaky breath.

' So we got in the car, and Wanda thought we were going home, but when Dad starting driving in the wrong direction she freaked out. I held her hand and sang dumb kids songs 'cause we were too little to know what was really going on. We pulled up at this huge building, and Dad took us out of the car. He held on to my hand so tight, as if he thought I would run away. And then, these men...' Pietro buried his face in his hands, trapped in the terrible memory he had pushed out of his mind for years.

'These men in white coats came running out to us, and they basically snatched Wanda away. I could see her screaming as they carried her inside, she was calling my name and I could do nothing 'cause Dad was gripping me so hard. I didn't need to ask him what was going on 'cause I knew. They put my sister in a crazy house, Lance,' he finished, unable to continue for the sobs that were shaking his body.

It was worse than he remembered, and the part that hurt the most was the hopelessness of it all. What could they have done to save a little girl from destroying everything and everyone in her path? But why did she have to suffer like that, while he and his father tried to carry on as normal? He hated to think of his sister alone and cold, remembering over and over again how the kid screamed in agony, how she had killed somebody and that was why she could never be normal ever again.

Through his tortured thoughts, he could hear Lance saying something. His voice floated through the painful memory, and his warm hands soothed Pietro's trembling skin. 'It's not your fault,' he was saying. 'It's not your fault.'

And then he kissed Pietro's eyes, wincing at the salty taste. 'It's not your fault,' he kept murmuring, curling himself around the boy and wrapping him in his arms.

'You'll sleep easy now,' Lance said, and Pietro closed his eyes.

...

After giving Pietro his medicine, Erik wondered if he might need a little dose himself after the day's events. To learn that Wanda was alive was scary enough – but to actually see her again and hold her in his arms was insane. He had tried so hard to forget her, but every time he closed his eyes she was there. If they ever met again, he had been terrified that she would kill him for what he did. For he knew that it was all his fault – if had he left her alone, she would never have become a monster. That little boy would have lived.

And now he realised the full impact of his careless science: Pietro was dying and Wanda was a shadow of the girl she had been.

What could he do? What could he do?

What really tore him up was how Wanda just gave in after everything he did to her. She had every right to hate him and want him out of her life, but she didn't. By no means did he deserve their reunion, and he didn't expect to be forgiven. Most of all, he'd never expected her to reach out to him and need his love. And he needed her just as much, if not more.

This was the most amazing luck. Opposite him, in his favourite armchair, wrapped in a midnight blue Morroccan throw, his long-lost daughter was asleep. He had been too overwhelmed to really see her in the first few moments, but now he drank in her appearance. Even though she was gaunt and slightly dirty, his heart swelled at her fragile beauty. Sleep honed the rough edges, making her look so young and innocent that Erik almost cried. It was as if she was six again, finally sleeping after Erik had read almost the whole of the newspaper to her. She was a strange child, with a taste for the obituaries and shipping forecast. As he read, she would watch him intently with her blue eyes sparkling under dark, dark lashes, so serious for a little girl. She didn't have a teddy bear like other children, but insisted on sleeping with a rag Erik used to clean his shoes. He had never loved her more than when was curled up asleep with black shoe-polish smudges all over her hands and nose. That was Wanda all over: undeniably different. He felt strangely blessed to be in her presence, afraid to move in case he woke her. She looked like she hadn't slept well for years, and he felt honoured to give her peace.

He was lucky beyond his wildest dreams. Wanda returning provided the key to the difficult mystery he had been trying to solve, and now he truly believed that he could save Pietro. It was all a matter of science – the same unforgiveable science that had corrupted his children could now be applied to stop their suffering. As soon as he got to the lab, he knew exactly what to do. It would be painful, but he would open that dusty file at the back of the cabinet and retrieve those frightening test-tubes from the freezer. And as soon as he had acquainted himself that awful method, he would have to operate on his children and reverse the disgusting mistake he had made years ago.

For only he knew the truth about the process. He was glad, extremely glad that Wanda slept on while he recalled that stupid experiment which had drastically backfired. Because, one night in the lab, he had noticed that Pietro's body was twice as responsive as Wanda's. He noted that this might be a speed mutation, which was a bloody fantastic stroke of luck because he could use it to help Wanda's powers emerge at the same time. His endless research had allowed him to develop a failproof solution which nurtured mutations before their time. Suppose he injected another dose of it into Pietro, along with some of Wanda's DNA, allowing Wanda's mutation to grow more quickly! He knew that he was skilled enough to separate Wanda's mutation from Pietro's when it was fully grown and feed it back into her without harming their individual powers. His mind buzzed with excitement at the idea, stopping him from thinking rationally about it. Within three months, it was done, and it appeared to have worked.

He had paid dearly for his arrogance and stupidity. Wanda's body had eventually rejected the mutation that was, perhaps, never fully hers. Part of her mutation must have remained in Pietro, to start growing again when it died elsewhere. What he had unveiled was horrible – he was like Doctor Frankenstein, playing with nature and creating monsters.

That was why he did not deserve the love of his children. But now it was time to put on his gloves and return to the cold, stark light of the laboratory. There was a chance that he could perform a similar operation by extracting Wanda's mutation from Pietro and restoring it to her for good. But it might not work, and Pietro's health was not sure to improve if the operation was a success. There were so many doubts about reversing the process, but he knew that he had to try. It felt like the right thing to do after doing everything so horribly wrong in the past.

This was what he owed to them.


End file.
